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KEEPING 
OUR FIGHTERS FIT 




Wcll-kiiowii loniiis pluyois j;iviii<,r .hu-kies at Mare Island a few 

[IDillll'lS 



KEEPING 
OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

FOR WAR AND AFTER 

BY 
EDWARD FRANK ALLEN 



WRITTEN WITH THE COOPERATION OF 

RAYMOND B. FOSDICK 

Chairman of the War and Navy Departments 
Commissions on Training Camp Activities 



WITH A SPECIAL STATEMENT 
WRITTEN FOR THE BOOK BY 

WOODROW WILSON 




NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 

1918 



Copyright, 1918, by 
The Centuky Co. 



Published, May, 1918 



JUN-8I9I8 ^ 

©GI.A497638 



^■'> 



-'W 



\ 



SPECIAL STATEMENT 

The twin Commissions on Training Camp 
Activities — one for the War Department and 
one for the Navy Department — were appointed 
by Secretary Baker and Secretary Daniels 
early in the war to link together in a compre- 
hensive organization, under official sanction, all 
the agencies, private and public, which could be 
utilized to surround our troops with a healthy 
and cheerful environment. The Federal Gov- 
ernment has pledged its word that as far as 
care and vigilance can accomplish the result, 
the men committed to its charge will be re- 
turned to the homes and communities that so 
generously gave them with no scars except 
those won in honorable conflict. The career to 
which we are calling our young men in the de- 
fense of democracy must be made an asset to 
them, not only in strengthened and more virile 
bodies as a result of physical training, not only 
in minds deepened and enriched by participa- 
tion in a great, heroic enterprise, but in the en- 
hanced spiritual values which come from a full 
life lived well and wholesomely. 

I do not believe it an exaggeration to say that 



SPECIAL STATEMENT 

no army ever before assembled has had more 
conscientious and painstaking thought given to 
the protection and stimulation of its mental, 
moral and physical manhood. Every endeavor 
has been made to surround the men, both here 
and abroad, with the kind of environment which 
a democracy owes to those who fight in its be- 
half. In this work the Commissions on Train- 
ing Camp Activities have represented the gov- 
ernment and the government's solicitude that 
the moral and spiritual resources of the nation 
should be mobilized behind the troops. The 
country is to be congratulated upon the fine 
spirit with which organizations and groups of 
many kinds, some of them of national standing, 
have harnessed themselves together under the 
leadership of the government's agency in a 
common ministry to the men of the army and 
navy. 




The White House, 
Washington. 
April 19th, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Development of a Purpose ... 3 
II Club Life in the Cantonments ... 18 

III Athletics — Educational and Recrea- 

tive 40 

IV The Fighters Who Sing 64 

V What They Read— and Why ... 84 

VI Entertainment in Camp 103 

VII Hostess Houses HI 

VIII The Post Exchange 138 

IX Educational Work in Camp .... 156 

X Fitting the Man to the Community . 169 

XI A Problem as Old as Time Itself . . 191 

XII Conclusion 206 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Well-known tennis players giving Jack- 

ies at Mare Island a few pointers . Frontispiece 

Some of the most noted fighters in the country are 
serving Uncle Sam as boxing instructors . . 9 

Boxing drill is an important part of the fighters' 
training 10 

Receiving stationery and free materials at the 
Army Y. M. C. A. counter, Camp MacArthur, 
Waco, Texas 27 

A friendly bout in one of the barracks at Camp 
Grant, lU 28 

The high jump at Camp Upton, Long Island . 45 

Training to come to grips with the Ilun ... 46 

Volley ball is a popular sport at all the camps . 59 

Winter sports at Camp Grant, Rockford, 111. . 60 

The song leader conducting a big ''sing'' at the 
Great Lakes Naval Training Station ... 77 

A regimental ''sing" at Camp Wadsworth, 
Spartanburg, S. C 78 

Camp Library at Camp Lewis, Wash 87 

Camp Library at Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, 
Ohio 88 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Special cases for the shipment of books to our 
men overseas 97 

The Sailors' Club at Coddington Point, Newport, 
R. 1 98 

A corner of the living room, Y. W. C. A. Hostess 
House, Camp Devens, Ayer, Mass 119 

The living room, large but homelike, in the Y. W. 
C. A. Hostess House, Camp Lewis, American 
Lake, Wash 120 

On the veranda of the Hostess House at Camp 
Upton, Long Island 133 

An evening with the Victrola, Y. "W. C. A. Hostess 
House, Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Ga 134 

Class in elementary English at an Army Y. M. 
C. A 159 

A class in trigonoraetrj' at Camp ]\IacArthur, 
Waco, Texas 160 

Pool rooms are part of the equipment of Service 
Clubs for the men in uniform 185 

An entertainment by home talent in the Y. M. C. 
A. tent at Pelham Bay, N. Y 186 



KEEPING 
OUR FIGHTERS FIT 



KEEPING 
OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

CHAPTER I 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PURPOSE 

IT was hot down on the Mexican border in 
the summer of 1916, hot all along the line, 
from the Gulf of Mexico westward to the Pacific 
Ocean. There was every kind and degree of 
heat, from the enervating, tropical humidity 
that prostrates, to the blast-furnace waves that 
roll off the cactus plains, causing the skin to dry 
like parchment and the eyes to burn in their 
sockets. Few of the soldiers mobilized there 
were used to it. 

If you know the border towns, you do not 
need to be told that it was dull, too. The col- 
lection of square-fronted, one-storied buildings 

3 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

and the drab adobe huts provided little in the 
way of entertainment. Even with the possibil- 
ity of a brush with the Mexicans, it was dull. 
Several thousand men were seeing the same 
faces and doing the same things every day, and 
they were bored. There was nowhere to go for 
any sort of decent diversion in their " off " time. 
Columbus, New Mexico, had none of the attrac- 
tions to which most of these men had been ac- 
customed ; there was no movie show, no library, 
no club room for lounging, no organized enter- 
tainment of any kind for the men. The condi- 
tions were practically the same in Laredo and 
Brownsville, Texas, and in Douglas, Arizona. 
There was not even a place where a man could 
go and write a letter. 

There was an ingrowing staleness all along 
the border. Men were hoping that Pancho 
Villa would happen by just to liven things up; 
anything would suffice for a change. But the 
soldiers just waited, with nothing to do outside 
of their military routine. Reading matter was 
at a premium, and the soldiers begged for worn- 
out magazines from travelers. There was no 

4 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PURPOSE 

ice-water, and on the trains that passed through 
the coaches had to be locked because thirsty 
soldiers would go aboard and raid the water- 
coolers. 

And so, when they had any free time, many 
naturally gravitated to the saloons and partook 
of their unchallenged hospitality. Liquor 
meant relaxation, relief from ennui; it was 
served where there was something doing; it 
spelled variety. The saloon and the "red 
light" district held an uncontested monopoly 
on the entertainment, and it was not an uncom- 
mon thing to see drunken men in uniform. 

The idea of eliminating these factors had not 
seemed to occur to the commanding officers; 
they were part and parcel of army life, among 
the accepted concomitants of warfare. When 
the Young Men's Christian Association first 
came into the field there was a noticeable im- 
provement on the border, but the conditions 
were considered inevitable. This was the situ- 
ation when Raymond B. Fosdick was sent as a 
special agent of the War Department to study 
the problem of the soldiers ' environment. The 

5 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

great need was for something wholesome to 
compete with the only forms of diversion to 
which the men had access, and out of this need 
grew the plan of the Commission on Training 
Camp Activities. 

When the United States was about to enter 
the war with Germany, Secretary Baker said to 
Mr. Fosdick, "I want an organization that will 
link together the Y. M. C. A., the Recreation 
Association, and every other agency that can 
contribute to the social well-being of troops in 
the field, an organization that will itself supply 
any gaps in the program." This was in April, 
1917, in the interim between the President's 
war message and the actual declaration of war 
against Germany by Congress. Secretary 
Baker had in mind the predicament of our boys 
in the border towns, how for want of something 
better to do they were led into unwholesome 
diversions. "This time," said Mr. Baker, 
"they will not be volunteers; they will be 
drafted into service. We cannot afford to draft 
them into a demoralizing environment. It must 
be assured that their surroundings in the camps 

6 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PURPOSE 

are not allowed to be less stimulating and 
worthy than the environment in their home 
communities." 

Such was the task that led to the appointment 
of the War Department Commission on Train- 
ing Camp Activities and, later, the Navy De- 
partment Commission on Training Camp Activ- 
ities. It marked the beginning of an epoch. 
For the first time in history a government 
looked beyond the machinery of fighting to the 
personal and moral welfare of the fighters. 

Keeping in mind the Mexican border in 1916, 
let us see what parallels are presented by the 
training camps of to-day. They are abnormal 
communities in a number of ways. Among 
their average population of 40,000 there are no 
women or children ; there is no home life. The 
men are necessarily abnormal. They are cut 
loose from accustomed relationships ; they have 
left their families, homes, and friends; their 
colleges, clubs, and church gatherings are no 
more; their dances, town libraries, athletic 
fields, theaters, and movie-houses are left be- 
hind; and they have entered a strange, new 

7 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

life in which everything is subordinated to the 
task of creating an efficient fighting force. 

Are men better soldiers for going without the 
above things? The judgment of commanding 
officers for ages past has apparently answered 
in the affirmative. To be sure, Napoleon said 
that a fighting army is a contented army, but it 
remained for the United States Government to 
apply the theory to practice. May not idleness, 
homesickness, weariness, and monotony dull the 
edge of the best war-machine that time and pa- 
tience can produce? Is it not obvious that any 
attempt to rationalize, as far as it can be done, 
the abnormal environment of a war camp is an 
attempt to increase the efficiency of the troops? 
As a matter of fact, I am thinking of this thing 
as an established conclusion and not as a hy- 
pothesis, for the practical application is being 
made to-day by the Commissions on Training 
Camp Activities. 

Their function is to keep the men of the army 
and navy fit for fighting, first, by keeping them 
physically well, and second, by keeping them 
contented, interested. These two purposes are 

8 




«-4 



a '''■ 



f «>0- 



teJ^-T' 







THE DEVELOPMENT OP A PURPOSE 

closely interrelated, and so, largely, are the 
measures by which they are accomplished. The 
plan itself has many ramifications, and it is 
only when one understands these that an ade- 
quate conception may be had of the magnitude 
of the undertaking. 

The work of the Commissions embraces two 
sets of forces, one of which competes with the 
twin evils of alcohol and prostitution and one 
which aims to suppress them. A cardinal prin- 
ciple of their policy is that concentration on 
the former lightens the necessity for the latter. 
Among the former are the agencies that, al- 
ready in existence, have been accorded official 
recognition and placed under the supervision of 
the Commissions. The club life of the canton- 
ment, for instance, is in the capable hands of 
the Young Men's Christian Association, the 
Knights of Columbus, and similar organiza- 
tions. With its wide experience in army and 
navy work, the Y. M. C. A. was particularly 
well equipped to furnish recreational and social 
facilities within the camps, and it has made good 
use of the money that was privately subscribed 

11 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

for the purpose. In each of the National Army 
cantonments there are from nine to fourteen 
Y. M. C A. buildings, and a somewhat smaller 
number in each of the camps of the National 
Guard. The Knights of Columbus organiza- 
tion has fewer buildings in each camp, but it is 
well represented and its functions are practi- 
cally the same as those of the Y. M. C. A. No 
meetings are held in any of these buildings to 
which all the troops in camp are not invited, 
regardless of religious or other preferences. 
Indeed, the admission of such organizations to 
the camps was on the express condition that 
their activities must not be limited to any par- 
ticular constituency; and from the first there 
has been a broad spirit of cooperation among 
them. 

Another important work among those coordi- 
nated by the Commissions is that of the Amer- 
ican Library Association, to which has been 
delegated the task of solving the problem of the 
soldiers' and sailors' reading-matter. This 
efficient organization is seeing to it that there 
is always a good book within the reach of the 

12 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PURPOSE 

fighting men. A special library building has 
been planned for each of the cantonments, and 
at this writing most of them have been built and 
are in operation. These are in charge of 
trained librarians. 

The valuable aid of the Recreation Associa- 
tion of America was enlisted in the cause of the 
soldier and sailor on leave. Its task has been 
to organize the social and recreational life of the 
communities adjacent to the training camps to 
provide for the assimilation of men in uniform. 
It has placed representatives in more than a 
hundred such communities and has mobilized 
the hospitality of churches, clubs, lodges, and 
other groups and organizations, as well as indi- 
viduals. In a word, it has awakened the com- 
munities to their obligation toward the fighting 
men at their doors. 

These are some of the agencies whose already 
organized forces were aligned by the Commis- 
sions. But there were other necessary activities 
that had to be organized b}^ the Government it- 
self. There is the matter of athletics. Less for 
the purpose of recreation than for developing 

13 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

the fighting instinct and the technic of fighting, 
yet it makes for mental as well as physical fit- 
ness. Best of all, it promotes that "everlasting 
team-work" which will be so great a factor in 
winning the war. The Commissions have ap- 
pointed sports directors, who now have military 
rank, and boxing instructors; and athletics is 
looked upon as one of the most important fac- 
tors in the training that prepares men to go 
into battle. 

The Commissions are developing mass sing- 
ing in the army and navy. It is their purpose to 
send men to France with the will to sing and 
the songs to sing. The camps are supplied with 
song-leaders whose training and experience fit 
them to direct this work, and no one phase of 
the activities of the Commissions carries with 
it more inspiration, either for participants or 
directors. Closely allied to the music is the 
dramatic entertainment that is being furnished 
in each of -the most important army camps. 
Plays of the best type are produced at fully 
equipped modern theaters wath a seating capac- 

14 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PURPOSE 

ity of 3000, and the cost to the soldiers is very 
low indeed. 

Finally, there is the suppressive side of the 
work, as opposed to the competitive. It deals 
with the twin evils that have always been asso- 
ciated with armies and training camps. Our 
War and Navy Departments in this war have 
taken the position that alcohol and the prosti- 
tute must be kept absolutely away from the sol- 
dier, and where the forces that have been estab- 
lished to take the place of the things they are 
trying to eliminate do not accomplish their pur- 
pose, then the Commissions act in cooperation 
with various agencies to suppress these evils. 

Even from this brief outline it will be seen 
that the Government has planned and put into 
execution a movement whose magnitude and 
far-sightedness are one with its novelty. I 
heard a business man, who considered himself 
practical-minded, however, ask what the idea 
was in pampering the fighting man. 

''What place has a theater in a training 
camp?" he asked. "What is the use of teach- 

15 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

ing men to sing, and why do you bother with 
men's morals, as long as they obey orders?" 

In the following chapters will be found the 
reply to these questions. By establishing the 
Commissions on Training Camp Activities our 
Government has set a new standard for the 
world to follow in the training and maintenance 
of its armies and navies. It has also set a 
standard for industry, and even at this early 
date some of the directors of the large concerns 
that are turning out munitions of war have 
asked the Commissions to take over their social 
problems in the same manner as they are han- 
dling those of the army and navy. They see 
in the work a value to be measured in dollars 
and cents. 

But there is one big purpose behind it all: 
to win the war. It will be won by man-power 
and manhood, and the activities of the Commis- 
sions are directed toward their cultivation. 
Every individual who does his or her part to- 
ward conserving these vital factors, is striking 
a blow for the emancipation of the world, both 
now and in the future. It is a movement for 

16 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PURPOSE 

the improvement of the nation, and it is utterly 
devoid of sentimentality. To make the men fit 
for fighting, and after, to bring them back from 
war as fine and as clean as they went, is just 
plain efficiency. 



17 



CHAPTER II 

CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

THERE is something undeniably pictur- 
esque about military life. Its glamor is 
akin to that of the stage ; it looks good from the 
front. When we were boys we played soldier, 
strutted around in improvised uniforms with 
weapons of heterogeneous lineage, and perhaps 
bemoaned our fate that our country seemed 
likely never to need our aid in fighting her bat- 
tles. The pomp and pageantry of warfare ap- 
peals to the elemental in youth, in all of us as 
far as we are youthful. The rhythm of drums 
and the crash of martial music quicken our 
pulses. A regiment in uniform, bayonets fixed, 
standards whipping in the breeze, flags waving, 
stirs the patriotism of every man, woman, and 
child. 

This is as it should be, but these manifeata- 
18 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

tions are superficial none the less. Let us con- 
sider how the typical soldier spends the greater 
part of his time, day in and day out. The con- 
trast is not intended to be disheartening, but is 
shown for the purpose of giving a better idea 
of what the soldier needs. Reveille sounds at 
5 :30 A. M. It is not like an alarm-clock ; there 
is no shutting it off and turning over for an- 
other forty winks. As it ends in one area of 
the camp, it is taken up in another, and is re- 
peated until its last insistent tones die away in 
the distance. At seven o'clock the soldier sits 
down to the first meal of the day, and at 7:30 
he arises. From then until a quarter of twelve 
his time is devoted to a variety of occupations. 
He may drill with his company, he may dig 
trenches, he may be engaged in rifle or bomb- 
throwing practice, or he may be detailed to 
guard or other special duty ; but in any case his 
time is fully occupied. Fifteen minutes are 
then allowed for ablutions or any other per- 
sonal needs before mess. The afternoon is 
merely a variant of the morning — hard, invig- 
orating work all of it. He stops at half -past 

19 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

five, and thereafter, except for mess or any spe- 
cial duty to which he may be assigned, his time 
is free until taps. In some camps the routine is 
broken on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when 
the men are free for the afternoon, and Sundays 
are regular holidays. 

Leisure time is the bugbear of the man away 
from home. A successful traveling man told 
me tliat if it were not for Sunday, his work 
would be one hundred per cent, congenial. A 
soldier's predicament is even more of a prob- 
lem, for with no more leisure time than the 
average man, he is much more restricted in his 
choice of diversions. Too often he has been in 
the position described by the popular song, *' All 
Dressed Up and No Place to Go." 

Within the camp of to-day, however, this con- 
dition does not obtain. The fighting man may 
now go to his club. 

It sounds a bit revolutionary to speak of 
*'club life" in the army and navy cantonments, 
but it is one of the outstanding features among 
the many which the Government has provided. 
In the Young Men's Christian Association 

20 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

buildings and those of the Knights of Columbus 
the troops have gathering places that furnish 
true club freedom and recreation. They are 
more than ''places to go"; they combine a defi- 
nite interest with a distinct personality. As an 
enlisted man said of the Y. M. C. A., *'It takes 
the place of home. " That, perhaps, is the high- 
est praise that it has received from the ranks. 
It is also an index to the unanimous opinion of 
these clubs, among the officers as well as the 
men. 

Their informality is a result of a careful 
study of the men's requirements. The restric- 
tions are few, and there is none that presents 
any hardship. The men smoke, loaf, write let- 
ters, and read magazines; they see excellent 
moving-pictures and other entertainments, they 
play the piano and phonograph, and find the 
same relaxation and good fellowship they would 
similarly obtain in their home town. In fact, 
many of these men are enjoying for the first 
time the intimate association and comradeship 
of club life. They have come from farms and 
from isolated villages in which there are no such 

21 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

advantages, and they will return to their homes 
with a broadened horizon and a set of social 
habits from whose influence they can never 
escape. This is one of the first indications of 
the socially constructive side of the work done 
by many branches of the Commissions. 

Parenthetically, the Y. M. C. A. and the other 
already organized agencies working for the sol- 
diers and sailors are all brought together in the 
interests of good team-work by the Commis- 
sions, which supply the necessary cohesive ele- 
ments between them to prevent the duplication 
and overlapping of work, and to make sure that 
the non-military needs of the troops, both within 
and without the camps, are fully and amply met. 
Each constituent organization, however, is re- 
sponsible for its own particular field and admin- 
isters and manages the interests which it has 
developed. These organizations existed prior 
to the appointment of the Commissions, and 
they are working in and about the camps upon 
the invitation of the War and Navy Depart- 
ments through the Commissions because of 
their especial skill or aptitude for the particu- 

22 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

lar line of activity which they have undertaken. 
As far as possible the Commissions are meeting 
the situation through agencies of this kind. 
When, however, it is necessary to carry on a 
given piece of work, and where no one organiza- 
tion seems adapted to the purpose, the Commis- 
sions do not hesitate to assume the initiative and 
responsibility. 

The Y. M. C. A. has been on the ground from 
the first. Before the camps were wholly com- 
pleted they had their headquarters established 
in tents from which they dispensed good cheer, 
information, and other forms of assistance. 
One of their representatives accompanied each 
of the troop-trains that carried raw recruits to 
the new cantonments. He was of the type 
known as a *'he man." Going into every car, 
he addressed the men informally, introducing 
himself and his work and telling them what the 
Y. M. C. A. stood ready to do. He gave them 
interesting and valuable information about the 
camp to which they were going, and told them 
something of the routine they would have to 
follow. It was in all cases a heartening talk. 

23 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

After hearing it, the men realized that the new 
life on which they were entering would not be 
simply a continuous round of grinding disci- 
pline without any contact with the things they 
had been used to at home. Here was ameliora- 
tion for the first sharp pangs of homesickness. 
There are at this writing 178 army and navy 
stations at which the Y. M. C. A. operates in 
nearly 600 buildings. At the smallest of these 
stations there is one secretary, with a tent for 
headquarters ; at the largest there are fourteen 
buildings, with a crew of secretaries at each. 
To appreciate the problems of the cantonments 
it must be remembered that their population is 
that of fair-sized cities, in some cases as great 
as 50,000. Many of them have from 25,000 to 
35,000 men. Adequate service requires that the 
club buildings shall be distributed so as to be 
easy of access ; it also requires efficient manage- 
ment, and, what is even more important, an un- 
derstanding of men. Wlien you take into con- 
sideration the number of different types, racial 
and personal, who meet on common ground at 
the Y. M. C. A. and K. of C. buildings, the spirit 

24 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

that pervades them and the smoothness with 
which the work progresses are remarkable. 

A typical bungalow, as the buildings are 
called, presents a reassuring picture to those 
who have feared for the social well-being of the 
boys in khaki. There is usually a big fireplace, 
where on cold days a big log fire crackles cheer- 
fully. The rocking chairs in the chimney-cor- 
ner are occupied by men with books and maga- 
zines, and there is a pleasant aroma of ''cut 
plug" burning in briar pipes. Toward the cen- 
ter of the room a victrola is pouring forth its 
soul in the latest ragtime ditty, or perhaps it is 
a grand opera selection, and at the desks near 
the windows there are men writing letters. 
They are indefatigable correspondents, these 
fighting men. It is estimated that more than a 
million letters a day are written by the soldiers 
and sailors on the stationery that is furnished 
free by the Y. M. C. A., one of the many indica- 
tions that the home fires are kept burning. 
They get their stamps from one of the secre- 
taries behind the desk, and mail their letters 
with him. From the same desk they buy 

25 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

money-orders, over three quarters of a million 
dollars a month in the aggregate. This same 
secretary acts as guide, philosopher, and friend, 
his activities in the latter capacity covering a 
wide range. He may write a letter for an illit- 
erate or engage in an impromptu debate with a 
college undergraduate as to the relative merits 
of Ibsen and Shaw ; he may lead a Bible class or 
referee a boxing bout. He must be a good 
"mixer" first and last, but his gospel of the 
"glad hand" must have a rock foundation of 
genuine interest. Paternalism is a stranger to 
this work. 

Part of the equipment of most of the build- 
ings is a small auditorium where events such 
as amateur vaudeville entertainments, Bible 
classes, movie shows, basketball games, song 
services and sparring matches take place. It is 
the aim of the Y. M. C. A. to provide some 
vehicle by which every man may find a means of 
self-expression. This necessitates finding out 
in what field his capabilities lie, and it is very 
skilfully done. One of the means to that end 
is the "stunt night," when an extemporaneous 

26 



'3> 




CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

vaudeville show is arranged. Among its by- 
products is the development of talent for more 
ambitious productions, but its chief justification 
is that it is as good fun as *' amateur night" at 
the neighborhood theater. I recall one occasion 
of the sort at a southern camp that brought joy 
to everyone present, including myself. 

Two negro boys were putting on the gloves 
as I entered. Boxing is always a popular phase 
of these shows. The master of ceremonies, a 
Y. M. C. A. secretary, announced from the plat- 
form: "Gentlemen, I take pleasure in present- 
ing Knockout Waite and One-Round Hogan in a 
three-round bout of two minutes each." There 
was wild applause from the spectators. Some- 
where behind me a voice said: "If the little 
one butts the other in the stummick with his 
head — boy!" 

The bout began quietly, too quietly in fact, 
for there were cries of "Aw, mix it up," "Go 
get him," and the like, but whether those col- 
ored boys were tired after a strenuous day, or 
afraid of hurting each other, they stalled and 
clinched through three rounds of comedy boxing 

29 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

that Mr. Frank Tiniiey could hardly equal. A 
laugh was pulled from the crowd between each 
round when another negro, acting in the capac- 
ity of trainer to both the fighters, fanned them 
vigorously with an army overcoat. 

Then a tenor who felt himself a potential John 
McCormack, and who was evidently considered 
in the same light by his friends in the audience, 
sang ''The Sunshine of Your Smile," "Where 
the River Shannon Flows," and "You 're as 
Welcome as the Flowers in May," and at the 
singer's invitation the listeners joined in the 
chorus. Even the men who did not know the 
words hummed the tune, and there was real 
harmony. As a sort of after-refrain there came 
murmurs of "Gimme a cigarette!" from the 
boys in the hall ; then the scratching of matches. 
It was the most interesting audience from a 
racial standpoint that I had ever seen — a 
sprinkling of Jews, a few Slavic types, negroes, 
some Scandinavians, and a pronounced Gaelic 
element — raw material being fused in tlio cru- 
cible of democracy. I also saw the beginnings 

30 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

of a community spirit among the men, most of 
whom would not recognize it by name. 

Other extemporaneous numbers figured on 
the program. A tall, lanky fellow whistled 
"Listen to the Mocking Bird" mthout incur- 
ring the wrath of his fellows, a colored lad 
played ragtime on the piano so that every foot 
was set to tapping, and there was more boxing. 
As one of the boys remarked, it was a ''large 
evening." 

The occasion, however, was not unique. 
These and other entertainments are being held 
continually. There is always something doing 
in the "Y" buildings. Three times a week, as 
a general rule, there are movies — films with ac- 
tion, thrills, and just enough of what the men 
call "sob stuff." Your fighting man has a 
strong vein of sentiment. There are religious 
services that are so interesting that they bring 
out nearly as many men as the movies. There 
are illustrated lectures and there are "sings." 
Every evening in the week the men have some- 
where to go. 

31 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

In the larger camps there is a Y. M. C. A. au- 
ditorium seating from 2000 to 3000 people. It 
is a central hall for the big Y. M. C. A. events, 
and is separate from the *' Liberty Theaters" 
built by the Commissions on Training Camp Ac- 
tivities. In it are held the entertainments, lec- 
tures, and other affairs that will draw men from 
all over the camp, and, like every other "Y" 
building, it is a busy place. In all the camps 
during the month of January, 1918, the total 
attendance at the Y. M. C, A. entertainments 
alone was 3,253,838. Except in a few rare in- 
stances, no admission is charged. 

The matter of entertainments may rest here, 
to be treated more at length in another chapter. 
The subject illustrates a phase of Y. M. C. A. 
and K. of C. work in the camps that helps to 
show their atmosphere and influence. 

Parallel activities in all lines, although of a 
narrower scope, are engaged in by the Knights 
of Columbus and the Jewish Board of Welfare. 
Both of these hold religious services in the 
Y. M. C. A. buildings, and there is a harmonious 
relation among them all. No discrimination as 

32 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

to color or creed is made by any of them; the 
utmost tolerance is observed as to religious con- 
victions. 

From a census taken at one of the canton- 
ments it was found that seventy-five per cent, 
of the soldiers were members of some church. 
The proportion may vary, but it is probable 
that these figures represent very nearly the 
average. This is not to suggest that the camps 
are centers of smug piety. They are far from 
IDuritanical. In the Knights of Columbus build- 
ings there is a stage at one end of the club room 
where on Saturday evening a minstrel show 
will gather a crowd. Mass will be celebrated 
the next day from an altar at the back of the 
same platform that at other times is concealed 
by sliding doors. In the Y. M. C. A. buildings 
the same room is devoted to the exponents of 
the Apostles ' Creed and the Marquis of Queens- 
berry rules, often one and the same man. How 
does it work out ? 

I had a long talk with one of the Knights of 
Columbus secretaries, a man who had been a 
newspaper reporter and cartoonist in a large 

33 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

city. He was a "live wire." He had seen all 
sides of life and met all kinds of people. He 
had a brand of slang quite his own, a sense of 
humor to match it, and a smile that could n't be 
eradicated. Under the bed in his combination 
private office and bedroom was a sizeable cache 
of cigarettes. ' ' They 're for the boys, ' ' he said, 
''when they need cheering up." He told me 
with enthusiasm of the infinite variety of his 
work. *'I teach one man how to box and an- 
other how to dance. Of course the Commis- 
sion's boxing instructor gives them all they 
really need, but they want more. I make up a 
basketball team, if it lacks one player, write 
a letter for a chap who may be a little short on 
education, cheer up the downhearted, or pos- 
sibly coach the men who are getting up a show. 
We gave one show here several weeks ago, and 
there was some real talent. The amateurs were 
good, but there were four professional vaude- 
villians as well. Right out of the ranks, too; 
you 'd know their names if I told you. Well, 
one of them came to me after a rehearsal and 
said, 'Mac, I have n't been to church for about 

34 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

four years, and I want to get back in. How do 
I go about it?' I knew well enough it bad been 
nearer fourteen years, but I didn't say a word. 
He 's one of the regulars at church service 
now." 

The Jewish Welfare Board has erected fewer 
buildings in camps, but provides social, educa- 
tional and religious programs. Even where 
buildings of their own are not available, the 
Jewish element never lacks places for religious 
observances, large or small. A Jewish soldier 
went up to a *'Y" secretary at Camp Upton one 
Sunday morning. 

**My father has come to see me and wanted to 
say a prayer before he goes back — if you could 
find a quiet corner somewhere?" 

The building was crowded with a noisy flock 
of soldiers and their visitors from New York, 
even the small assembly room had been set 
aside temporarily as a rest room for women. 
But the secretary led the boy and his father to 
his owm private office, and shut the door upon 
the two. 

Personal service plays a large part in the 
35 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

work of these organizations. At one of the 
camps not long ago a Y. M. C. A. secretary 
went over to the base hospital to see if he could 
do anything for the soldiers there. Three of 
them asked him to do errands, and in fulfilling 
these requests the secretary cheerfully walked 
eight miles. 

A Detroit mother heard that her son was dy- 
ing of smallpox in a certain camp. She had not 
heard from him in some time, so it was easy for 
her to believe such a wild report. Finally she 
called up the Y. M. C. A. on the long distance 
telephone, and inside of an hour received a defi- 
nite message to the effect that her boy was in 
excellent health and had neglected to write home 
through carelessness. The lad wrote a letter 
that evening. 

In an eastern camp one of the secretaries is 
a man whose financial rating is $40,000,000, but 
none of the soldiers know this and only a few of 
his associates. His wife comes each day to the 
camp and maintains a headquarters for mend- 
ing. There are doubtless many similar in- 
stances. I know of one other, in particular, 

36 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

where a millionaire has given up his business 
and gone into army Y. M. C. A. work, while his 
wife is acting as a volunteer worker in the Host- 
ess House cafeteria. These people, as well as 
those who require the small stipend that goes 
with their positions, have taken up the work be- 
cause they love it. For it is not a loafing job, 
and there is no glory in it, but there is satisfac- 
tion for the right kind of man. 

The camp clubs are effectively bridging the 
gulf that lies between the recruits and their 
environment. By giving men a chance to ex- 
press themselves, which is one of their strong 
points, they help to preserve their moral rela- 
tionship with society. Among the mediums of 
self-expression is ''Trench and Camp," the 
newspaper in which is chronicled the happen- 
ings of the week. There is an edition for each 
of the cantonments, and four of the eight pages 
are local, the rest being of general interest to 
soldiers. The men are invited to contribute to 
the columns, and some of the articles and car- 
toons show considerable talent. Out at Camp 
Kearney, California, an amusing incident OC' 

37 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

curred when the newspaper was first estab- 
lished. Boxes were put up in each of the Y. M. 
C. A. buildings and placarded, ** Contributions 
received here for ' Trench and Camp. ' ' ' When 
the editor made his rounds the next day in 
search of news, he found in one box a dime, a 
nickel, and two cents ! 

The magnitude of the Y. M. C. A. organiza- 
tion for army and navy camps is hardly realized 
by any who are not connected with it. Its work- 
ers in this country and overseas number 5181. 
The total annual business done in its canteens 
abroad amounts to $5,000,000 a month, which, I 
am told, is bigger than that of the company that 
operates America's greatest chain of five-and- 
ten-cent stores. It is also the largest single 
consumer of moving-picture films in this coun- 
try. Over five hundred machines are in opera- 
tion in the cantonments of the United States, all 
running from one to six nights a week, during 
which time between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 feet 
of film are shown. 

After the sinking of the steamship Kansan, 
which included in its cargo supplies for the 

38 



CLUB LIFE IN THE CANTONMENTS 

Y. M. C. A. huts abroad, the following order 
was received at headquarters: "Send 20 tons 
plain soap, 20 tons condensed milk, 10 tons choc- 
olate, 5 tons cocoa, 2 tons tea, 5 tons coffee, 5 
tons vanilla wafers, 50 tons sugar, 20 tons flour, 
2 tons fruit essences, 2 tons lemonade powder, 
120,000 Testaments, 120,000 hjmin-books, tons of 
magazines and other literature, 30 tons writing- 
paper and envelopes, 50,000 folding chairs, 500 
camp cots, 2000 blankets, 20 typewriters, GO 
tents, 75 moving-picture machines, 200 phono- 
graphs, 5000 records, 1 ton ink blotters, $75,000 
worth athletic goods, 30 automobiles and 
trucks." And the order was filled at once. 

In the club life of the camps efficient business 
organization goes hand in hand with definite 
personal service. If there is any red tape in 
either the Y. M. C. A. or the K. of C, it does 
not come close enough to the soldier and sailors 
for them to discern the color. Organized 
friendship is a success ; it makes better fighters. 



39 



CHAPTER III 

ATHLETICS EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

THERE are over a million men systemat- 
ically engaged in athletic activity in the 
military training camps of this country, and the 
primary purpose of it all is to educate the men 
to be better fighting organisms. Incidentally, 
of course, there is recreational value to athlet- 
ics. Indeed, it might be generalized that the 
aim of athletics in the training camps here is to 
make the men fit to fight, while ''over there" it 
is a matter of keeping them fit to fight. In 
France and on the foreign seas, where the career 
of the soldier and sailor is extremely strenuous 
at times and deadly monotonous at others, the 
recreational value of sports naturally becomes 
more important than the training value. Men 
just out of the trenches after nerve-racking days 
amid flying bullets and bursting shells turn in- 

40 



EDUCATIONAL AND KECREATIVE 

stinctively to athletics for diversion. But at 
first the problem is distinctly one of educating 
body together with the mind along lines of offen- 
sive fighting. 

Through the Commissions on Training Camp 
Activities the Government is encouraging and 
directing athletics in more than thirty-five army 
camps and half as many naval stations. The 
department of athletic work for the army is or- 
ganized under the direction of Dr. Joseph E. 
Raycroft, professor of hygiene in Princeton 
University, and the responsibility for the or- 
ganization and conduct of the work in each camp 
is delegated to carefully selected men of skill 
and experience. These were at first recognized 
as civilian aides on the staffs of the commanding 
officers, and their salaries were paid from gov- 
ernment funds; but later many of these ath- 
letic directors were commissioned as officers of 
the regular army. There is close cooperation 
between them and the athletic representatives of 
the Y. M. C. A. and the Knights of Columbus 
Vv'ho are working in the camps. Similarly, Wal- 
ter Camp, the eminent foot-ball authority, has 

41 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

charge of the athletic work for the Navy De- 
partment Commission on Training Camp Ac- 
tivities. 

It is a big work, this organizing and directing 
the athletic activities of forty thousand men, 
and each of the divisional athletic officers has a 
man's size job. But the reactions are remark- 
able. Foot-ball, base-ball, basket-ball, soccer, 
boxing, track and field athletics — in fact, nearly 
all the sports known to Americans — are in- 
dulged in by all the men in training. Never be- 
fore in the history of this country have so large 
a number of men engaged in athletics ; never be- 
fore has its physical welfare received such a 
stimulus. Narrow-chested clerks are making 
three-base hits on the same base-ball teams with 
college athletes, and lean-visaged philosophers 
are learning how to use their fists. The book- 
keeper and the street-car motorman come to 
grips on the foot-ball gridiron. Men are learn- 
ing to get bumped, and not to mind it. The 
quality of persistence is being developed. 
High school and college men who have played 
upon foot-ball teams and the rest of the com- 

42 



EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

paratively few among our young men who kno\\ 
what it is to be in personal conflict with another 
man are simply receiving further instruction in 
something which they have already experienced ; 
but to the vast majority of the men in the army 
and navy it is something brand-new. To the 
mountaineer and the boy from the farm it is 
particularly a novelty. The contribution of 
athletics toward the developing of an aggressive 
fighting spirit is tremendous, and the develop- 
ment of this spirit, to say nothing of the purely 
physical benefit which the men get from the ex- 
ercise, is a real addition to the military efficiency 
of those soldiers. 

In addition to seasonal and recreational ath- 
letics, Walter Camp has gradually installed his 
short-hand setting-up exercises in the naval 
training stations. These he has devised from 
the most scientific physical culture plans of 
modern students, for the efficient development 
of the body. They are based upon the principle 
that proper setting-up exercises should exhil- 
arate and strengthen instead of weakening and 
exhausting as was often the result of the old 

43 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

systems. The men regard these exercises as an 
agreeable change from former calisthenics. 
Indeed, they have become enthusiasts on the 
subject. 

Mr. Camp has introduced this new system 
with the authority of one who was for nearly 
three decades organizer of athletics at Yale and 
who has also been for a number of years Chair- 
man of the Intercollegiate Rules Committee. A 
school for trained leaders in the new calisthenics 
is operated at the New Haven Naval Base 
where squads of officers and men come to re- 
ceive instructions. 

The most encouraging part of it all is that the 
men enjoy athletics keenly, and the cooperation 
of the officers is another factor that makes for 
its success. In this connection I give the fol- 
lowing close paraphrase of a memorandum is- 
sued from the headquarters of one of the camps 
by order of the brigadier-general : 

To provide an opportunity for every soldier in the 
camp to participate actively in at least one organized 
athletic sport and to provide a daily recreation period 
to vary the regularly prescribed physical drill, men 

44 



•4 








EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

engaged in any of the five sports composing the all- 
point contest — that is, tug of war, basket-ball, volley- 
ball, soccer, and playground-ball — will be excused 
from participation in the daily physical drill, pro- 
vided that at the same time they are engaged in 
games under the provision of the all-point con- 
test. 

The games will take place at the same time, and 
only for the period scheduled for physical drill. In 
order that too much time may not be wasted in going 
to and from the playing-fields for various games, 
athletic directors are authorized to confer immediately 
with regimental and organization commanders with 
a view to laying out playing-fields adjacent to the 
areas upon which organizations hold their physical- 
culture work ; and further to assist the athletic direc- 
tors, it is requested that organization commanders 
furnish them with a copy of the weekly schedule of 
military duty for their regiments showing times when 
physical drill work is scheduled. 

Men forming these various teams will be required 
to be present for the games as regularly as if par- 
ticipating in the prescribed physical work. 

Thus with better bodies are developed more 
alert minds. And if a spirit of emulation is 
fostered in competitive athletics, what will the 
result be on the battle field? Nothin^^ coordi- 
nates the personal faculties needed in w^arfare 

47 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

like the team-work that goes with organized ath- 
letics. In the inter-regimental and intercom- 
pany athletic contests one fuids the same variety 
and concerted effort and team enthusiasm that 
characterize the college foot-ball game. There 
is one great difference, however, between college 
athletics and those of the army and navy. In 
the former it is the exceptional man who derives 
the benefit, while among the fighting forces it 
is everybody. University athletics develops 
champions; army and navy athletics develops 
the mass. 

**The sports included in the camp curriculum, 
such as boxing, foot-ball, and other personal- 
contact games, ' ' says Dr. Ray croft, * ' have been 
selected primarily to prepare the men for the 
struggle to come, and the value of the athletic 
training they have received will be fully realized 
when they go ''over the top." When the com- 
mission first began its work in this direction 
there was prevalent a well-defined belief that a 
soldier could be made by putting a man in uni- 
form and teaching him the manual of arms. 
Our experience of the last ten months has 

48 



EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

proved that athletics increases a man's fighting 
efficiency and naturally wholesome recreation 
follows. 

"The value of work of this sort cannot be 
overestimated. In addition to the obvious 
physical benefits which are derived from par- 
ticipation in competitive athletics, there are 
three considerations of particular importance 
that are not generally understood. 

"Boxing has great value in developing in the 
individual man the sense of confidence and ag- 
gressiveness that is generally desirable in a sol- 
dier, while it gives better than any other form 
of training a sound foundation for modern bay- 
onet-fighting. Participation in recreative ac- 
tivities of an athletic nature is most valuable as 
a means of counteracting the necessary monot- 
ony of the professional training work and as a 
means of developing a group spirit and soli- 
darity in the various units, while it was recently 
characterized by one of the leading authorities 
on mental and nervous diseases as one of the 
most important factors in preventing the occur- 
rence of the condition known as * shell shock. ' 

49 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTEES FIT 

''A large percentage of the casualties on the 
modern battle-field are classified as 'shell shock,' 
though less than half of these are due to the 
immediate effect of concussion from high ex- 
plosives. A considerable proportion of the men 
suffer merely from what is called the develop- 
ment of 'the anxiety state' — a state which we 
sometimes call getting stale, and which displays 
itself in a man in irritability and loss of appe- 
tite. Many soldiers go through pretty much 
that kind of experience. They lose their dis- 
crimination. Instead of being able to tell 
whether a shell which is going through the air is 
going to drop fifty yards away or near them, 
they are at a loss. They get 'jumpy. ' They do 
not sleep. They do not eat. Gradually they lose 
their power to work and are dangerous persons 
to have about. It is dangerous to intrust them 
with any responsibilities if they are officers. It 
is extremely difficult for them to recover from 
such a state. One of the important factors in 
the prevention of the development of this con- 
dition is the opportunity for, and the habitual 
participation in, athletic activities. These do 

50 



EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

not have to be highly organized, but they must 
be of the kind that stirs one up and takes him 
out of himself." 

In one of the Western cantonments there is a 
big field where sixteen base-ball diamonds have 
been laid out, and it is not uncommon for sixteen 
games to be going on there simultaneously. 
Try to visualize this scene and what it means 
simply from the angle of clean sport, and then 
picture the activities of these men as fighters. 
What bomb-throwers those pitchers will make ! 
How resourceful those first basemen will be in 
battle! How keen the catchers! Here is first 
aid to discipline, self -discipline at that. As an 
index of public interest, it is only necessary to 
mention that a foot-ball game between teams 
representing two Western camps brought in 
gate receipts of $40,000. 

At another camp there are twenty-six foot- 
ball gridirons, with a seating capacity of eight- 
een thousand. Multiply the enthusiasm of a 
single game by twenty-six, and consider its 
effect on the morale of participants and the en- 
thusiasm of spectators. Sports to-day are in- 

51 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

deed being promoted on a scale that is unpar- 
alleled in history, and new conditions have 
given rise to a new emphasis on mass athletics. 
Games of soccer have frequently occurred in 
which four hundred players have participated, 
with from eight to ten balls in use. Two thou- 
sand men run cross-country races at one time. 
Within a week three thousand men in one naval 
station played base-ball. 

Among the divisional athletic officers are 
some of the foremost athletic coaches in the 
country. To a man they are skilled organizers 
and directors and many of them have been 
star athletes in their undergraduate days. As 
might be expected, the caliber of these leaders 
is high. In civil life they were engineers, archi- 
tects, deans of universities, lawyers, and impor- 
tant men of business. 

The inspirational value of playing needs lit- 
tle exposition, but the parallel between playing 
and fighting may be illustrated in a number of 
ways. "While playing soccer a man must be 
ready constantly to strike at the ball with either 
foot. In this way he naturally acquires a short 

52 



EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

gait and a balance that will serve him in good 
stead in traversing the churned and furrowed 
surface of no-man's-land. It is a highly exhil- 
arating game, combining the maximum of exer- 
cise and recreation with a training that will be 
exceedingly useful to the men when they meet 
the enemy. 

The science of boxing, as Dr. Raycroft has 
pointed out, is intimately related to the busi- 
ness of bayonet-fighting. The sport of boxing 
develops the science. Incidentally, it is one of 
the most popular sports in camp and one of the 
cleanest. At a well-known New York club de- 
voted to the arts one of the regular weekly din- 
ners was followed by an informal discussion on 
the subject of boxing. It was a hobby of one of 
the members, and to prove his contention that 
it was not a brutalizing sport, he had arranged 
a few short bouts for the edification of those 
present. Among them was a clergyman, a mid- 
dle-aged man, who had followed the discussion 
with interest, but looked as though he had no ac- 
quaintance with the subject at first hand. 

After a five-round bout between two speedy 
53 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

young middle-weights, the enthusiastic master 
of ceremonies turned to the clergyman and ex- 
claimed : 

''Well, what do you think of it! Is it 
brutal?" 

And the clergyman replied with equal enthu- 
siasm: 

"It 's worth a ten-dollar bill to see a man who 
can take a blow in the face without getting 
mad." 

Boxing teaches the manly art of self-control 
as well as that of self-defense. It also makes 
better bayonet-fighters. Nearly every blow and 
position has its counterpart in bayoneting. I 
have seen boxing lessons in camp given to one 
thousand men all at once, the class being di- 
rected by a man on a high stand. One thousand 
boxing lessons at the same time ! I said to an 
ofiScer standing by: 

"How many of those men do you suppose 
have ever struck another man since they were 
boys?" 

"Not ten per cent.," he answered, and I think 
he was right. The boxing which these men did 

54 



EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

in friendly bouts later taught them what per- 
sonal conflict was. One of these days the quick- 
ness and aggressiveness developed in this box- 
ing will be the means of saving their lives. 

The attack known as the ''long point" in bay- 
onet-work, for instance, corresponds to a "left 
lead ' ' in boxing, and a blow of the butt of a gun 
to a "right-hand counter." The leg-work in 
executing a "chop" with the bayonet is very 
similar to what is known as a "Fitzsimmons' 
shift. " The men learn to be quick on their feet. 
Nor is this merely theoretical. The Canadian 
troops who have been at the front report that 
the agility and quickness of eye gained in box- 
ing is a valuable part of the soldier 's equipment. 

Detailed groups of men who have had pre- 
vious knowledge of this sport have been trained 
by the boxing instructors to become their assist- 
ants. In many camps from two hundred to four 
hundred of these assistant boxing instructors 
have been developed and are giving instruction. 
The system reaches out to every man in the serv- 
ice. "I feel that the boxing instructor's place 
is with the division until we are ready to occupy 

55 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

the trenches, and indeed afterward, to keep up 
their spirit and desire for personal combat 
among the men whenever quartered in billets; 
for his work among the men has reached their 
fighting spirit more than any one realizes at 
this time," said the commanding officer of one 
of the big army camps in an official report. 

Moving-picture films that show in the most 
graphic manner possible the relation between 
boxing and bayonet-fighting have been prepared 
by the War Department Commission on Train- 
ing Camp Activities and distributed for exhibi- 
tion in the various National Army and National 
Guard cantonments to facilitate the work. The 
world's champion boxers posed for the pictures 
which illustrate in detail the proper way of 
starting and landing the different blows and 
how to put the full force of the body behind 
them. Their counterparts in bayoneting are 
demonstrated. ''Bayoneting is boxing with a 
gun in your hands," is one of the expressive 
subtitles of the film, and then a famous boxer 
is shown starting a "left hook" for the head of 
another pugilist, while at the same time the bay- 

56 



EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

oneteer uses the same movements in sending his 
bayonet toward the neck of an armed antagonist. 

One of the boxing instructors — there is one in 
nearly every large training camp — marvels at 
the manner in which they respond to this in- 
struction. 

*'It 's incredible," he says, ''the way boxing 
has taken hold of the men. They 're simply 
wild over it. In the classes where I am explain- 
ing the blows and positions they hang on every 
word and watch my movements as a cat watches 
a mouse. The results of the instruction are 
plainly seen in the bouts the men hold in their 
barracks and camp-recreation buildings. In- 
stead of lowering their heads and whaling away 
wildly in windmill fashion like novices, they 
square off and sail into one another with heads 
erect and their guards up just like real profes- 
sionals." 

Are you thinking that this training for bay- 
onet-fighting may brutalize the men, your 
son or your husband, perhaps? Richardson 
"Wright, in his ''Letters to the Mother of a Sol- 
dier," says: 

57 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

If you feel that jabbing six inches of cold steel 
into Germans will make brutes of Harry and his fel- 
lows, what would you think about him if he refused 
to do it? In times of peace the man who refuses to 
defend his fellow-man against the unjust and mur- 
derous assault of a thug is called a coward. How 
much more is he a coward who sees the bleeding and 
mutilated forms of outraged men and women and 
the ruins of their homes, and does not rush to their 
defense? This sort of bravery is what you gave the 
boy yourself . . . you taught him tenderness, un- 
selfishness, loyalty, laughter, courage, and endurance, 
and with these things to play the great game. Put 
a bayonet in such a man's hands and tell him to kill 
the foe. He will kill not because he has a lust for 
blood, but because of the righteousness of the cause. 

Besides the Hetter-known sports, there is a 
great variety of games : Volley-ball, push-ball, 
medicine-l>all, quoits, cross-country running, 
fencing, and, at the naval training stations in 
particular, swimming. At one of the stations it 
was found that more than fifty per cent, of the 
men were unable to swim, so the best instructors 
available were engaged. At least one half of 
the cantonments boast tennis-courts, and there 
are other evidences of the initiative of the vari- 

58 



• i.'l- 



! € ^i :u 








EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

ous divisions, regiments, and companies that 
are in the same category. When the camps are 
in Northern climates, the men indulge during 
the winter in such sports as skating, skeeing, 
and tobogganing. All of these indicate a con- 
certed tendency toward healthful, worth-while 
diversions, fully as pronounced as, if not more 
than, in the universities. 

One phase of camp athletics is hardly touched 
by the colleges — laughter-compelling games. 
This is important, for good humor is one of the 
vital elements of discipline. The games are 
popular, too. The men get a particular wild de- 
light out of "swat tag." Twenty or thirty of 
them form a circle, standing with their hands 
behind their backs, palms up, facing toward the 
center of the circle. The man who is " it " holds 
a cotton-stuffed canvas bag about eighteen 
inches long by two inches thick. As he walks 
around the outside of the circle he places the bag 
in the hands of any of the players. As soon as 
a man has the bag thrust upon him he strikes 
with it at his neighbor on the right. The idea 
is for the right-hand neighbor of the man who 

61 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

thus becomes '*it" by receiving the bag to race 
around the circle and back to his former place 
before he is struck. The man who is ''it" has 
the privilege of placing it in the hands of any 
of the players. 

What does this simple game do for the man? 
It develops an extreme physical alertness. I 
have seen the game create a perfect wave of 
nerve tension among a circle of thirty newly 
drafted men. There was a big stimulus to avoid 
being hit. It put every man of them on his toes. 
Some of them were nettled, stung, when they 
were caught. To many of them it was a new 
sensation. One man was continually the butt. 
He was always getting thumped, and he reacted 
accordingly. He developed quickness ; he de- 
veloped a fighting spirit. 

Another of these games has some of the same 
elements of boyish fun combined with real mili- 
tary value. A man stands in the center of a 
circle of troops and swings a twelve-foot rope 
with a weight on the end around the circumfer- 
ence as rapidly as possible. Each man in the 
circle has to jump as the rope approaches him, 

62 



EDUCATIONAL AND RECREATIVE 

and if he does not jump high enough to clear it, 
his legs get entangled, and he is thrown to the 
ground. It sounds simple, and it is ; but I wish 
that you could see it done. Men get hysterical 
in their laughter when they see it, and, in fact, 
all of these games are equally mirth-provoking. 
They play leap-frog, prisoners '-base, and a 
dozen others their younger brothers have for- 
gotten, and they enjoy them. 

There are plenty of games of this sort that, 
besides promoting good feeling, develop self- 
control, agility, mental alertness, and initiative, 
all bases on which to build military efficiency. 
Moreover, men whose boyhood ended all too 
soon have an opportunity to play as they never 
played before. 

It must not be forgotten that all this is a part 
of military training, and that the pleasure de- 
rived is something more than incidental. Mus- 
cle counts for little unless there are behind it 
driving force and control ; apathy in an army or 
a navy is fatal. But the fighters who play and 
who laugh as they play are irresistible. 



63 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

Glory, glory, hallelu-YUH! 
Glory, glory, hallelu-YUH! 
Glory, glory, hallelu-YUH! 
As we go marching ou. 

THE way those sailor boys came out with the 
"YUH" was a caution. 
Eight hundred of them had trooped into the 
armory at the Naval Training Station for a 
**sing." They had been drilling all the morn- 
ing and a part of the afternoon on the 
** grinder," as they call the parade ground 
where they practise their evolutions, so that 
when they began the session with 

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag 
And smile, smile, smile, 

there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. You 
could hear the accompaniment all through it. 

64 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SINO 

It seemed as though they would rather sit and 
listen to the sailor lad play the piano. 

This phase did not last. The song-leader an- 
nounced from the table on which he stood that 
he wanted them to sing "Where Do We Go 
From Here." 

''Everybody sing!" he shouted. ''If you 
don't sing, whistle, keep time with your feet, 
only do something. Now for some ginger!" 

He raised his baton, the accompanist struck 
a chord, and then — 

Where do we go from here, boys? 
Where do we go from here? 
Slip a pill to Kaiser Bill? 
And make him shed a tear; 
And when we see the enemy 
We '11 chase him to the rear. 
joy! BOY! 
Where do we go from here ? 

This was better. Things were beginning to 
liven up. One of the bluejackets shouted, "O 
Jerry, give us 'Joan of Arc'!" Hardly any of 
the boys knew the song-leader's last name, and 
they would n't use it if they did. He is a civil- 

65 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

ian appointed by the Navy Department Com- 
mission on Training Camp Activities, and like 
all the rest of the song-leaders, he gets his re- 
sults through personality and the provision of 
inspiration. It would take more than a song- 
leader to make men sing, but he can make them 
want to. 

So they sang ''Joan of Arc," and there was 
a strong, patriotic thrill in the line 

Come lead your France to victory, 

sung to a measure of the Marseillaise. It was 
an earnest of what these men would do toward 
freeing the world of Prussianism. They sang 
it vigorously, joyously; theirs was the spirit of 
conquerors. 

Then they sang ''Old Black Joe," to give an 
outlet to harmonious inclinations, followed by 
the whimsical ditty whose chorus is — 

Good-bye Ma, good-bye Pa, 
Good-bye Mule with your old he-haw. 
I may not know what the war 's about, 
But you bet, by gosh, I '11 soon find out ! 
An' my sweetheart, don't you fear, 
I '11 bring you a king for a souvenir. 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

I '11 git you a Turk and a Kaiser, too, 
An' that 's about all one feller can do! 

A quickening of the spirit was apparent. 
The accompaniment got lost directly following 
the first chord ; and finally when they sang 

We '11 hang Bill Kaiser to a sour-apple tree 

and the refrain of 

Glory, glory, hallelu-YUH ! 

the very rafters vibrated in sympathy. 

It took these men just forty-eight seconds 
to stack their camp-chairs and get back into line. 
When they counted off in fours there was a snap 
in their enunciation that had been absent before 
they began to sing, and as they marched out of 
the armory they stepped briskly. In their com- 
plete relaxation they forgot all about being 
tired. It was a graphic demonstration of the 
practical value of singing as an adjunct to the 
training of men for warfare. 

A singing army is a cheerful one, and, other 
things being equal, a cheerful army is invincible. 
Therefore, as a definite part of camp drill it has 

67 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

a distinct military value. Authorities do not 
lay stress upon it in the military textbooks, but 
they talk a good deal about morale and esprit de 
corps, on both of which singing has an immense 
influence. 

A well-known officer said that, theoretically, 
music is a gratuity, a luxury ; practically, it has 
proved itself to be a necessity. With these sen- 
timents behind it — they are typical — army and 
navy singing is making tremendous progress, 
and the effects are already beginning to show. 

Singing has long been recognized as an aid to 
efficiency, but it remained for the Commissions 
on Training Camp Activities to develop it in an 
army and navy with that end in view. A hun- 
dred years ago, when American shipping was 
paramount on the seven seas, the sailors before 
the mast sang their chanties as they pulled on 
the ropes or tugged at the windlass. Chanties 
were regarded as an aid to man power. They 
might be sentimental or dramatic or ribald — 
more often than not the words were as ungodly 
as the men who sang them — but they smacked 
of the salt sea, they promoted good feeling 

68 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

among the crew, and they were an energizing in- 
fluence. Those days are coming back. Not 
only has the inspiration and power of song been 
recognized by the War and Navy Departments, 
but to further it on board all the ships flying an 
American flag the United States Shipping 
Board Recruiting Service has appointed an of- 
ficial Chantey-Man for our merchant marine to 
help revive singing among our sailors. 

It is natural for men to sing when they con- 
gregate in groups, almost as natural as are their 
gregarious instincts. Singing provides an out- 
let for their inherent desire for self-expression ; 
it is likewise relaxation and also stimulation. 
If mass singing in the army and navy needs" any 
justification by those who cannot see its broader, 
inspirational significance, it would be sufficient 
only to cite its physical effects. 

*'It is just as essential that the soldiers should 
know how to sing as that they should carry rifles 
and learn how to shoot them," said Major-Gen- 
eral Leonard Wood. ''Singing is one of the 
things they all should learn. It sounds odd to 
the ordinary person when you tell him every 

69 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

soldier should be a singer, because the layman 
cannot reconcile singing with killing. But 
when you know these boys as I know them, you 
will realize how much it means to them to sing. 
There is n't anything in the world, even letters 
from home, that will raise a soldier's spirits 
like a good, catchy marching-tune. ' ' 

Another officer says: "It is monotony that 
kills the men off. A man gets tired of drill, 
tired of doing the same thing in barracks, even 
tired of getting shot at. We need company 
leaders to teach the men new songs ; we need in- 
structors to show the men how to get up their 
own minstrel shows and dramatic entertain- 
ments. Everything that can be devised by way 
of wholesome amusement toward breaking up 
the monotony is a direct help in making better 
soldiers and in keeping the standards high." 

The resourcefulness and enthusiasm of the 
individual song-leaders has resulted in the de- 
velopment of both social and military team- 
work. There are plenty of incidents which go 
toward proving the statement, but one of the 
best of these occurred in a camp not over a hun- 

70 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

dred miles from Boston. The song-leader had 
a small motor-car with space in the back for a 
folding organ. This enabled him to carry his 
work to the men in whatever part of the camp 
they happened to be. He had, moreover, a 
number of white oilcloth charts on which were 
lettered the words of the most popular songs. 

One afternoon while on a trip through the 
camp the song-leader noticed about forty men 
pulling stumps. He saw at a glance that they 
were tired, dog-tired, in fact. Drawing up his 
car at the side of the road, he held a hurried 
conversation with the officer in charge. The 
officer was heard to say, ''By all means, try 
it." 

So the song-leader unrolled his charts and 
hung them on the side of the ''flivver," told 
the men to sit down on the stumps they had been 
pulling, gave them a chord or two on the little 
organ, and suggested that they sing, "Yaaka 
Hula, Hickey Dula." They did. It began a 
trifle languidly, but the volume picked up after 
the first line, and they repeated the chorus twice. 
This was followed by that modern classic, 

71 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

Keep your head down Al-le-mand, 

Keep your head down Al-le-mand, 

Last night by the pale moonlight, 

I saw you, I saw you, 

You were mending your broken wire. 

When we opened with rapid fire, 

If you want to see your fader in the faderland 

Keep your head down Al-le-mand. 

They fairly bawled it out. The transition 
from lassitude to energy was marked and sud- 
den. They didn't want to stop, either. For 
fully twenty minutes they sang under the lead- 
ership of the song-coach, and as he left, the 
men cheered and the lieutenant yelled, *^Come 
again!" They went back to their work, but 
they yanked out the stumps with a vigor that 
had been lacking before. From a distance the 
leader heard them singing as they worked, 

Pull away, pull away, pull away, brave boys, 
Pull away, pull away, the viet'ry 's ours. 

"The victory is yours, all right," he said to 
himself, ''but you don't want to forget that 
song is a mighty good ally." 

A leader, describing his initial sing with the 
72 



THE FIGHTEES WHO SING 

sailors at Norfolk, shows in a similar manner 
the reactions of the men. 

''When I started out," he says, "the men had 
just had a serious talk from the chaplain on the 
responsibilities of their new work, the dentists 
had been ministering to them all the morning, 
and the doctors had been at work with their se- 
rums. I was feeling a bit depressed myself, 
and when my accompanist failed to appear at 
the last minute, I wondered if I alone could 
bring back to normal all those woeful counte- 
nances. Ten minutes later the miracle had been 
wrought, but not by me — the song did the trick. " 

There has been a marked catholicity of taste 
in the kind of music chosen for camp singing. 
It is in keeping with the purpose of the Commis- 
sions that less attention is paid to the matter of 
what the men sing than to the more important 
consideration that they sing. The bulk of the 
songs are nothing classical ; sometimes they are 
inclined toward the ' ' roughhouse ' ' ; and yet one 
day in a southern camp I heard a group of thou- 
sands of men — almost a whole division — sing- 
ing: 

73 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

Mine eyes have seen the glory 

Of the coming of the Lord, 

He is trampling out the vineyard, 

Where the grapes of wrath are stored; 

and I felt no misgivings as to the wliolesomeness 
of the sentiments of these singing fighters. 

This breadth of choice is strongly in evidence 
in ' ' Songs of the Soldiers and Sailors, ' ' the first 
song-book ever published by a government. 
When the Commissions inaugurated the song- 
coach system in the army and navy, they real- 
ized that unless there was some method of 
standardization, the soldiers and sailors from 
different parts of the United States would not 
know the same songs w^hen they came together, 
so a conference of song-leaders was held under 
the auspices of the National Committee on 
Army and Navy Camp Music to compile a col- 
lection that would be composed of what the 
greatest number wanted to sing. The result is 
the little khaki-bound volume called * ' Songs for 
Soldiers and Sailors," which is on sale at the 
Post Exchanges at all of the camps. The price 
is five cents to those in the service, while civil- 

74 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

ians may purchase it for ten. It contains songs 
of all sorts, from the National Anthem to * ' Send 
me a Curl," and contains such favorites as 
''Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," "Silver 
Threads Among the Gold," "Dixie," and a 
few of the best-known lijrmns. It is, I believe, 
the most remarkable song-book ever pub- 
lished. 

Musical originality is being encouraged and 
developed at all of the camps. There are ' ' song 
contests" in which the various regiments com- 
pete for prizes offered by public-spirited citi- 
zens, and in some of these some wonderfully 
good original songs have been sung for the first 
time by their composers. Among these are 
parodies, like the Camp Devens gem, "Where 
Do We Go From Ayer, Boys!" and many sim- 
ilar ditties, but others are wholly original, both 
words and music. 

Mass singing is of great value in filling in 
periods of waiting. A crowd of marines were 
waiting in the ''Y" auditorium at Quantico for 
a vaudeville show to begin. The performers 
were late. So the boys sang, and if the band 

75 



KEEPING OUE FIGHTERS FIT 

on the platform had not been more than ordi- 
narily efficient, you would not have known it 
was there. They went through nearly the 
whole repertoire, singing from words that were 
thrown on a screen by a stereopticon. Then the 
^'Hymn of the Marines" was announced, the 
500 men rose to their feet, and they sang it 
gloriously. 

The men sing on the march, they sing in their 
barracks, and they sing between the acts at the 
Liberty Theaters. For the most part it is spon- 
taneous, first and last, but if it is not at first, 
it is certain to be in the end. I have seen groups 
of men in which there were a few whose faces 
indicated a grim resolve not to be forced to sing. 
Their attitude toward the song-leader was de- 
fiant. Presently, however, their feet began to 
keep time to the music surreptitiously, as 
though they were ashamed of it. The charm 
had begun to work. It hardly ever took longer 
than ten minutes for every one of those men to 
be singing as lustily as any in the group. 

The song-leader at the Great Lakes Naval 
Training Station shows by the following inter- 

76 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

esting synopsis what singing does for the fight- 
ing men : 

I. The Unit 

1. Team-work 

2. Concerted action 

II. Mental Discipline 

1. Memory 

2. Observation 

3. Initiative 

4. Definiteness 

5. Concentration 

6. Accuracy 

7. Punctual attack and action 

III. Physical Benefits 

1. A strong back, chest, and lungs 

2. A throat less liable to infection 

3. Increased circulation helps to clear 

nasal cavities 

4. Strengthens and preserves voice 

The following letter that I recently received 
from a lieutenant in France is one of the best 

79 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

evidences of how singing promotes morale 
**over there.'* His men were taking a thirty- 
mile hike, and he had gone on ahead to find quar- 
ters for them. 

'*I had to parley-vous pretty fast for a few 
hours to get together a couple of tons of straw, 
enough firewood for a day or two, kitchens, local 
supply-rooms, orderly rooms, officers' rooms, 
water-supply, and so on. But I was all ready 
when the column arrived, and they all had a. hot 
meal that night and half a bundle of straw to 
sleep on. The general and the colonel were 
both there when I met the column and began 
dropping the men off in their billets — ten here, 
fifteen there, and so on through the village. 

''And they were singing, too, when they came 
in, the poor kids! Not much of a rollicking, 
boisterous song, but still a song. They were 
woefully tired, but wouldn't quit — eighteen 
miles the first day and twelve the second ; long, 
hard marches with heavy packs, steel helmets, 
gas masks, and the odds and ends of much 
equipment weighing seventy or eighty pounds. 
Their feet were so blistered that they could 

80 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

hardly hobble along. And the next day they 
were very proud of themselves for finishing! 
They were nothing but kids, but they had a 
spirit that brings tears to your eyes !" 

Inspiration, the greatest force of music, is, of 
course, taken for granted. In this connection 
it is well worth noting that General Pershing 
has asked for the organization of American 
bands of forty-five musicians, after the pattern 
of the French bands of fifty pieces, in addition 
to a field-music corps of thirty-six drummers 
and trumpeters. Instrumental music is receiv- 
ing a great impetus, as well as singing, in the 
army and navy. Regimental bands are prog- 
ressing beyond the ability to carry a blaring 
tune. 

The War Department Commission on Train- 
ing Camp Activities believes that the endorse- 
ment of General Pershing and his recognition 
of the inferiority of American bands, in com- 
parison with those of France, will go a long 
way toward the improvement of this branch of 
the service. The narrow field to which our gov- 
ernment musicians have been restricted has not 

81 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

tended toward the development of such splendid 
concert bands as can be heard in any part of 
Europe. As examples, there are the Cold- 
stream Guards of London, the Royal Scottish 
Highlanders of Edinburgh, the Guard Repub- 
licaine of Paris, the Municipal Band and Royal 
Carabinieri of Rome, and even the bands of the 
Bavarian army that were stationed at Munich. 
We have only one government band that can 
compare with these European bands — the Ma- 
rine Band of Washington. But the war is grad- 
ually bringing about a true realization of the 
value of music as a factor in increasing a man's 
fighting efficiency, and the approval of General 
Pershing will stimulate this feeling and help us 
greatly in accomplishing our purpose. 

Patriotism is no hollow, empty thing. It 
wins battles. And the music, be it instrumental 
or vocal, that awakens it and feeds it is scarcely 
less potent than high explosives. At sunset, 
when the colors are lowered and the bugles 
blow *' Retreat," you can best sense its true 
meaning. The most matter-of-fact man in the 
world, the oldest officer in the service, and the 

82 



THE FIGHTERS WHO SING 

newest recruit — all stand at rigid attention as 
the band plays ''The Star Spangled Banner." 

Our boys are singing. A singing army is in- 
vincible. 



83 



CHAPTER V 

WHAT THEY READ AND WHY 

WHAT do our soldiers read? 
You might as well ask what the peo- 
ple of Fresno, California, or Madison, Wiscon- 
sin, or East Orange, New Jersey, read. In an 
army of a million and a half men selected from 
all strata of society and from every walk of 
life, there are bound to be as many varieties of 
taste as in a like number of civilians. And yet, 
strange as it may seem at first glance, the fact 
that they are soldiers does make a difference. 
I have talked with Dr. Herbert Putnam, Librar- 
ian of Congress and General Director of the 
Library War Service, and with many other rep- 
resentatives of the American Library Associa- 
tion, including camp librarians, and they are 
unanimous in their statement that the American 
soldier of to-day reads a higher class of books 
than the average American citizen. 

84 



WHAT THEY READ— AND WHY 

In supplying the normalities of life to the 
fighting men, a program that omitted provision 
for the adequate distribution of good reading- 
matter would have been as anomalous as a uni- 
form without a man in it. Hence, this work, 
delegated to the American Library Association 
on account of its eminent fitness for it, is a com- 
plement without which the activities of the com- 
missions would be far from complete. That 
the public has realized this is shown by the fact 
that when, in September, 1917, they were asked 
for a million dollars with which to buy books 
and build camp-libraries, they subscribed over a 
million and a half dollars. 

Burton E. Stevenson, well-known author and 
librarian at Camp Sherman, sums up the pur- 
pose and spirit of the work exactly when he 
says: 

** Camp-library service has been established 
with just one purpose, that is, to help win the 
war. There are three ways in which it can 
help: first, by helping to maintain the morale 
of the men by providing them with interesting 
and entertaining reading-matter to help tide 

85 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

over the moments of loneliness and depression 
that come to everyone; second, by helping to 
educate them concerning the causes and pur- 
poses of the war, and to make them realize that 
they are not fighting France's fight, England's 
fight, or Italy's fight, but America's fight; that 
it is not Belgium or England or France that 
Germany is seeking to destroy, but the ideals 
and principles that form the foundation stones 
of this American' Republic ; and third, by pro- 
viding the men with special technical books 
along their several lines, thus making them bet- 
ter and more efficient soldiers." 

At this writing there are thirty-three library 
buildings which have been erected with the 
$320,000 given by the Carnegie Corporation for 
the purpose. The one at the Great Lakes Naval 
Training Station was paid for by an anonymous 
gift of $10,000. At least two more are in pros- 
pect. They are roomy, wooden buildings about 
one hundred feet long and forty feet in width, 
and, as they were designed by a library archi- 
tect, they are well adapted to their purpose. 
They are comfortable, too, and, better than that, 

86 



WHAT THEY READ— AND WHY 

a spirit of helpfulness and hospitality is pres- 
ent at all times. 

''The more at home the men feel, the better 
pleased I am," said one of the librarians to 
me. 

"Do you prohibit smoking in the building!" 
I asked. 

"Certainly not," he replied. "Why should 
I? This is a library for men, a special kind of 
a library, and its informality widens its sphere 
of usefulness." 

These libraries are conducted on a plan simi- 
lar to those in towns, but there are variations 
that promote a freer use and a more widespread 
circulation of the books. Besides the central 
building in each camp, branches are maintained 
at the Y. M. C. A. and K. of C. huts, in the Post 
Exchanges, at the base hospital, and at other 
convenient points. At these branches the sol- 
diers can get books at any hour of the day or 
evening, and they are so arranged that they 
can change their books by the "honor system," 
merely a matter of leaving a memorandum on 
the book-card. 

89 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

There is hardly any more formality at the 
library building itself. The librarian presides 
at the desk, helps the men select suitable read- 
ing-matter, or attends to the hundred and one 
details that in civilian affairs would be given 
to a clerk to handle. For library work in the 
camps is no sinecure. Except for those who 
can afford to give their services, the librarian- 
in-chief receives a salary of only $1200 a year, 
and he is on duty nearly all of the time, as 
are also his assistants. Their sleeping apart- 
ments are in one end of the building in which 
they work. 

In the number of books circulated, fiction 
holds the first place. That is natural. A good 
story helps to tide over the unoccupied mo- 
ments, when the stoutest heart is apt to sink. 
But running fiction a close second are books of 
pure and applied science. Men are being called 
to unaccustomed tasks, and that they may be 
the better fitted for them, they are doing a vast 
amount of studying and *' reading up." Books 
on various kinds of machinery, gasoline- 
engines, aeroplanes, electricity, and chemistry 

90 



WHAT THEY BEAD— AND WHY 

are in constant demand, and any book not on 
the shelves that is really needed is provided by 
actual purchase. 

Among the books in one day's circulation at 
Camp Meade the following subjects were rep- 
resented: French history, mechanics, topog- 
raphy and strategy in war, self-propelled 
vehicles, hand-grenades, field-entrenchments, 
bridges, chemistry, physics, astronomy, ge- 
ology, hydraulics, electricity, medieval history, 
civil engineering, geography, American history, 
surveying, materials of construction, general 
history, masonry and concrete. 

The training camp of to-day, in fact, is not 
essentially different from a big university, but 
the men work and study a good deal harder in 
the training camps than they would in a uni- 
versity. This war is a highly specialized affair. 
It is a modern science which men must learn by 
studious application to the problems of drill 
and trench, and so they acquire the habit of 
study and close application. Army life to-daj^, 
and navy life, too, for that matter, furnishes 
a tremendous incentive to study, and the en- 

91 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

thusiasm with which it is taken advantage of is 
an encouraging sign for the future. 

One of the librarians wrote to headquarters : 
''We want all kinds of engineering hand-books, 
mechanics hand-books, books on sanitary engi- 
neering, and books on all branches of the serv- 
ice. They cannot be too technical to suit the 
men. You will be interested to know how 
quickly the newly-purchased books are snapped 
up. Of the six copies of Thompson's "Elec- 
tricity," four are out now, and they were out 
within a week after they were ready." 

A rather amusing incident is told by Mr. Bur- 
ton Stevenson to indicate the high standard re- 
quired by the soldiers. 

"The system of book-requests that has been 
installed at many of the camp libraries," he 
says, "has rendered valuable service — aside 
from its immediate function of getting the books 
into the hands of those who want them — in 
giving accurate information as to the books 
really in demand. Many of them are, of course, 
for books of the lighter and more popular type 
— juveniles, to all intents and purposes — but at 

92 



WHAT THEY READ— AND WHY 

the other extreme was the request of a man for 
a book on motors. He was shown the best and 
most advanced book the librarian possessed. 

'< 'Why, I made the drawings for that book,' 
he said, 'I want something better than that.' "• 

Another phase of the soldiers' reading is 
illustrated by a private in a Texas camp who 
made a request for books on intensive agricul- 
ture. The librarian was interested in men first 
and books afterward, so he drew him out on the 
subject of his preference in reading. 

''It 's this way," the man said. *'I 'm a 
farmer. My dad has a truck-farm just outside 
of Houston, and he sent me to agricultural 
school to learn the up-to-date methods. I 've 
simply got to read these things and keep abreast 
of the times, so that when I get through sol- 
diering I '11 know how to handle a cultivator. 
And say, have you got David Grayson's 'Ad- 
ventures in Contentment'?" 

At Camp Johnston, near Jacksonville, Flor- 
ida, where there are stationed about twenty-five 
thousand men, all of whom are connected with 
the Quartermaster's Corps, the camp library is 

93 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

of special interest. Its book-catalogue looks 
like that of a university, for the books are more 
largely scientific and practical than in any other 
camp. Besides technical topics like mechanical 
and civil engineering, the books include such 
subjects as accounting, the making and repair- 
ing of various sorts of equipment, care of 
horses, transportation, and the like. 

The growth of the reading habit among sol- 
diers and sailors has brought to light an inter- 
esting contradiction to the generally accepted 
theory that among a group of individuals the 
leveling process is a leveling downward. The 
men in camp who are readers stimulate by their 
example the interest of those who are not. 

''Have you read this story?" asks Private 
X of Private Y . 

' ' Naw, ' ' replied Private Y ; " I never read 

a book through in me life." 

"Well, y'oughta read this one. It 's better 'n 
any movie-show y' ever saw; it 's a bear!" 

Thus does Private Y get an incentive to 

taste the joys of literature. There is a tend- 
ency toward a leveling upward. 

94 



WHAT THEY READ— AND WHY 

Aside from technical subjects, other infor- 
mational subjects that are popular in camp in- 
clude those on travel, especially in France, his- 
tories of France, Germany, and the United 
States, and books dealing with the war. Among 
the last named are those that make clear the 
causes and issues of the war — President Wil- 
son's works are much read — and narratives of 
personal experiences. Empey's ''Over the 
Top" is, I am told, the most popular book in 
the army, and ex- Ambassador Gerard's "My 
Four Years in Germany" is also in great de- 
mand. 

Poetry has a considerable circulation in the 
camps, from Keats and Shelley to anthologies 
of old favorites like ''Heart Throbs." One 
man will request a volume of Shakespeare and 
another the very modern poems of Robert Serv- 
ice ; and, thanks to the generosity of the Ameri- 
can public, these requirements can generally bo 
met. 

The men, as a rule, like their fiction to be ex- 
citing. Detective stories, tales of adventure, 
and thrilling love-stories are read until they are 

95 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

dog-eared. Thus, Jack London, Rudyard Kip- 
ling, Edgar Allan Poe, Rider Haggard, and 
Alexander Dumas, as well as 0. Henry, Harold 
Bell Wright, and E. Phillips Oppenheim are 
among the favorite authors in camp. Curiously 
enough, there is quite a steady demand for boys' 
books. Requests for juveniles generally come 
from men whose educational advantages have 
been retarded. The books are easy to read, and 
many of them are highly entertaining. Some, 
like "Huckleberry Finn," are classics as well. 
Most of the fiction has been supplied by gifts, 
and the majority of it is of a surprisingly high 
quality. When the appeal for books for the sol- 
diers and sailors came, there was, of course, a 
certain number of people who considered it a 
heaven-born opportunity to unload all the unde- 
sirable books in their libraries. And so, among 
the ha If -million or so volumes that were at first 
contributed, there was a choice collection of 
school-readers half a century old, annual reports 
of cattle-breeders' associations, files of under- 
takers' trade papers, copies of the "Elsie" 
books, and volume after volume of salacious 

96 




Special cases for the shipment of books to our men overseas 



WHAT THEY READ— AND WHY 

fiction as offensive as a German minenwerfer 
bomb. Teutonic efficiency also succeeded in 
placing books of propaganda in the receiving 
stations, but these, as well as the foregoing, did 
not reach the camps. 

In the basement beneath the dome of the Con- 
gressional Library at Washington I had an op- 
portunity to examine some hundreds of contrib- 
uted books that had been made ready to ship 
to one of the camps. The librarian in charge 
told me that they were characteristic. They in- 
cluded whole sets of encyclopedias in good con- 
dition, excellent editions of the classics, and a 
preponderance of the better sort of present-day 
fiction. Scientific books were in the minority; 
these have to be provided mainly by special 
purchase. Young women connected with the 
library were working evenings to get these 
books ready for the soldiers, donating their 
services. 

Thus far I have spoken only of libraries in the 
training camps, but that is not to say that the 
work ends there. It extends to scores of 
smaller posts and to innumerable warships, 

99 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

patrol-vessels, and transports. Down near the 
Hoboken water-front, where the ships that were 
German sail from docks that were German after 
being loaded with soldiers who are American, 
there are three saloons that suddenly lost their 
usefulness when war was declared. To-day 
those erstwhile places of entertainment are the 
scenes of well-ordered activity, for there the 
American Library Association has established 
a despatch-station from which books are sent 
on board the ships that are going to France. 
A similar despatch-office has been established at 
Newport News in a building constructed for the 
purpose. These despatch-offices are to handle 
the bulk of the overseas shipments, including 
those to the American naval bases abroad. 

The Hoboken office looks like the shipping- 
room of a big publishing house that is doing a 
land-office business. Cases of uniform size, 
each holding fifty books, are filled with a well- 
rounded selection of volumes and put aboard 
the ships. They are marked ''On Deck" so 
that they will not be stowed in the hold, and 
each one is so fitted with bolts that when there 

100 



WHAT THEY READ— AND WHY 

are several, they can be fastened together in the 
form of a bookcase. On the voyage they are 
opened and read. When the ship docks, the 
covers are screwed on again and the boxes 
turned over to the Y. M. C. A., the Red Cross, 
the Salvation Army, and the army chaplains for 
distribution as needed, all under general direc- 
tion of representatives of the Library Associa- 
tion itself, already in France for the purpose. 
Enclosed in each box is the following letter : 

TO THE ONE IN CHARGE: 

This box can be used as a bookcase. It will be 
most convenient to leave the books in it, saving the 
front and screws for use when returning the books to 
the source of supply. 

Some one should be appointed to take charge of 
the books and to issue them to borrowers, though he 
need not be held to a strict accountability for the loss 
of some of the volumes. They should, however, be 
looked after as carefully as circumstances permit. 
The charging-eard inside the back cover will help 
greatly in this. When a book is taken away, the 
borrower should take the card from the pocket inside 
the back cover, write on it in the spaces provided the 
date and his name (and when necessary his company 
and regiment), and deposit the card in a receptacle 

101 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

provided for that purpose. It will save trouble if 
the book-cards of the books in use are kept in alpha- 
betical order, according to the authors' names. 

Before a book is returned to the case its card must 
be replaced in the pocket, so that no charge may 
remain against a man who has brought his book back. 
It will be well to explain this simple arrangement to 
the men who have access to these volumes. 

When this box of books is no longer of use here, 
screw on the front cover and return to the source of 
supply (for example, the nearest Y. M. C. A. or 
Knights of Columbus Headquarters) with a request 
for others. 

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 

"WAR SERVICE COMMITTEE 

Thus it can be seen that the service is without 
any **red tape" and is designed to meet the 
widest possible requirements. Some of these 
books will go to the hospitals, and even to the 
trench dugouts. Probably thousands will be 
lost, and it is not expected that any will be re- 
turned to this country. But they will have 
served their purpose : they will have saved lives, 
and they will have made better soldiers and 
sailors. 



102 



CHAPTER VI 

ENTEBTAINMENT IN CAMP 

A CERTAIN general in a southern canton- 
ment reported that covering a period of 
three weeks, while seventy per cent, of the men 
could have had leave from the camp, only thirty 
per cent, availed themselves of the privilege. 
The meaning of this is clear: that camp was 
more attractive than the adjacent towns. The 
boys knew there would be more doing, at less 
cost, right in their own Liberty Theater, the 
Y. M. C. A. and K. of C. bungalows, and even in 
the barracks, than in any of the communities 
nearby. 

Although the camp communities of the coun- 
try are doing wonders in entertaining men on 
leave, nevertheless Uncle Sam, like many an- 
other wise guardian, began by making home at- 
tractive for his nephews. Working through the 

103 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

War Department Commission on Training 
Camp Activities, he provided each of the sixteen 
National Army camps with a theater having a 
seating capacity of three thousand and a stage 
accommodating the scenery of plays classed as 
"Broadway productions." These playhouses 
are built of wood, but they have been con- 
structed along modern lines and embody every 
detail that makes for quick and easy emptying 
in case of fire. There is no balcony, except in 
the case of one theater, the aisles and spaces be- 
tween the rows of seats are wide, and the exits 
are many. There are real footlights, dressing- 
rooms with running hot and cold water, a com- 
plete equipment of tackle for handling drops, 
flies, and wings, and an outfit of regulation 
*'sets," so that any ordinary play may be 
staged without extra scenery or properties. In 
the winter both auditorium and stage are 
warmed by large heaters. 

The doors open early, but not before a long 
queue of soldiers has collected at the entrance, 
waiting for first choice of the unreserved seats. 
They are an orderly crowd, although an expect- 

104 



ENTERTAINMENT IN CAMP 

ant one, and in the glare of the big electric sign 
in front of the theater there is enough life and 
action to remind a New York soldier of the Hip- 
podrome just before a Saturday night perform- 
ance. One element is lacking, however, and that 
is the ticket speculators. When the doors are 
opened you will notice that the men pay their 
way in with coupons from little books, the cele- 
brated "Smileage Books," by virtue of which 
one may provide his soldier friend with from 
four to twenty admissions to the shows that 
visit the camps. Those who have invested their 
dollar or their five dollars in "smileage" would 
wish no better return than to see the final test of 
its efficacy at one of the Liberty Theaters. 

While the audience is being seated by the sol- 
diers detailed as ushers, the regimental band 
that will officiate as orchestra stops in front of 
the theater on its way in and plays tw^o or three 
selections just by way of livening up the occa- 
sion. Vociferous applause greets them as they 
file in and take their places in the orchestra pit. 
It is quite like a small-town theater-gathering. 

The reserved seats begin to fill up. Officers 
105 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

arrive, the band plays a rousing overture, and 
the curtain rises. After that it is hard for a 
soldier to realize that he is in camp, which is the 
exact effect aimed at by the Commission in de- 
veloping the Liberty Theater idea. . 

Tension such as the fighter experiences needs 
relaxing just as surely as a bow needs to be un- 
strung when it is not in use. Equally certain is 
it that relaxation in some form will be found 
by these men. The theater is safe, inexpensive, 
and uplifting. Does it need any further justi- 
fication as a promoter of morale, and, in its last 
analysis, fighting efficiency? 

But better than merely giving the boy a good 
time is the other role played by the Liberty 
Theater. Helping the boys to make their own 
good times is a part of their field of usefulness. 
They are the town-halls of these military com- 
munities, and as such they serve for a variety 
of uses. In many a regiment there is talent 
enough, professional and amateur, from which 
to organize and produce a high-class minstrel 
show or other entertainment, and these can be 
held in the theater. The Commission is secur- 

106 



ENTERTAINMENT IN CAMP 

ing for each Liberty Theater a man who has had 
experience in coaching amateur dramatics, pre- 
ferably one who has directed productions in 
men's colleges. He will mix with the men, fer- 
ret out talent, both latent and developed, and 
keep the community interest at a high point. 
By all this the Commission is trying to make the 
soldiers self-amusing, so that when thej^ get to 
France and have few or no facilities for thea- 
tricals they will be able to entertain themselves. 
In fact, both the theater managers and dramatic 
coaches are charged with the responsibility of 
developing leaders for this work among the men 
themselves. In addition to dramatics, the more 
important athletic exhibitions, lectures, and 
moving-picture shows are given there. Big 
' ' sing-songs, ' ' with the song-coach leading from 
the stage and three thousand performers seated 
in the auditorium, are another phase of its util- 
ity. It is, in fact, a civic center of the camp. 

Provision is being made as rapidly as possible 
for entertainments of various kinds at naval 
training stations and smaller camps. At every 
one there are "movies," and each Liberty Thea- 

107 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

ter is also equipped with a projection-machine. 
The best and latest "feature films" procurable 
are run, and they always draw a crowd, for al- 
though they are carefully censored, the censor- 
ship has been exercised merely on the maudlin, 
without interfering with red-blooded action, 
wholesome sentiment, and good humor. 

Vaudeville is another form of entertainment 
popular at the Y. M. C. A. and K. of C. bunga- 
lows. It is supplied from outside sources and 
by the men themselves, the latter being the more 
enjoyable because the men know better what 
will "get across." There is a good deal of pro- 
fessional talent in the ranks, so that with their 
coaching and the natural ability that it brings 
out among the men, the entertainments pro- 
duced are often of a high order. 

Music plays an important part in these pro- 
ductions. There are excellent singers in every 
camp and many musicians who do not play in 
the bands. A Knights of Columbus secretary 
told me of a negro trooper who teased melody 
out of a cigar-box fiddle with one string, and of 
another in his company who drummed amaz- 

108 



ENTERTAINMENT IN CAMP 

ingly with thimbled fingers on an old wash- 
board. One evening an officer who was pass- 
ing the barracks beheld a negro on guard-duty, 
his gun over his shoulder, shuffling up and down 
in jig-time. From inside came the sound of a 
strange barbaric tune played with a most pro- 
vocative syncopation. The officer stopped to 
watch. Finally the guard saw him. Overcome 
with mortification, he managed to salute. 
''Boss," he said, "it 's jest natchelly impossible 
for ma feet to behave when I hears that music 
playin'. " Such talent as this does not go to 
waste when an entertainment is being arranged. 
Unique among the cantonments in a number 
of ways is Camp Funston at Fort Riley, Kan- 
sas. With the largest number of troops in any 
of the camps, it is located at a considerable dis- 
tance from any town large enough to assimilate 
the men on leave. Owing to this condition the 
Commission approved the granting of conces- 
sions to private amusement enterprises in a spe- 
cial zone within the camp. There are four 
blocks of establishments like those to which sol- 
diers resort when they go to town, and as they 

109 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

are all under Government supervision, their 
superiority is apparent. There are three thea- 
ters, including a motion-picture house seating 
1500, a stock-company theater with a capacity 
of 2000, and the Liberty Theater. The billiard 
and pool hall has 150 tables, and it is not uncom- 
mon for all of them to be in use at once. There 
are restaurants, soda-fountains, cigar-stores, 
and even a bank; and there are a dozen other 
kinds of shops, among them a meat market 
where the soldiers can buy a slice of ham for a 
sandwich or a whole steer for a barbecue. Each 
of these features is a phase of the system for 
keeping men fit. They are linked thereby to 
the concerns of the civilian world and are pro- 
vided with the personal comforts that are not a 
part of military equipment. 

Best of all in the whole program of enter- 
tainment is the opportunity offered for soldiers 
and sailors to express themselves in the medi- 
ums to which they have been accustomed, or in 
something better. The most successful way of 
entertaining them is by giving them the means 
to entertain themselves. 

110 



CHAPTER VII 

HOSTESS HOUSES 

A LITTLE gray-haired woman came up to 
the main desk in one of the great, brown, 
home-like buildings known as Hostess Houses. 

**I want to tell you," she said to the secre- 
tary, ''how different my visit to-day has been 
from the last one. A week or so before this 
house was opened my daughter and I came down 
to camp and brought the babies to see their 
father." 

The young woman at the desk looked sym- 
pathetic. She knew what that meant. 

"Well," continued the visitor, "it was rain- 
ing, too, and we were dumped off at the bus sta- 
tion in a sea of mud. We hadn't the slightest 
idea how to find Henry. Finally a soldier di- 
rected us to his regimental headquarters, and 
we wandered about through mud and rain till 

111 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

we found his company. There we were told 
that he was on duty and could not see us. So 
for two hours we sat on an old wet crackerbox 
outside the barracks. The babies were getting 
more tired and cross every minute. After 
about three hours Henry was relieved from 
duty, and we had a chance to talk with him for 
about fifteen minutes, but we were so exhausted 
and wet and cold that you can imagine it was n't 
much fun." 

''It was quite different to-day, wasn't it?" 
suggested the secretary. 

*'I should say it was! Fifteen minutes after 
we got off the train we stepped inside this splen- 
did, home-like building with its cheerful wel- 
come and its air of friendliness. My son was 
notified of our arrival by telephone and was with 
us within a few minutes. It was a wonderful 
afternoon. If you did nothing but furnish a 
place for visitors to sit, you would be doing a 
splendid piece of work, but you seem to have 
thought of everything, even toys for the chil- 
dren to play with. ' ' 

This is one instance among many that serve to 
112 



HOSTESS "HOUSES 

show how important a place in the work of the 
Commissions on Training Camp Activities is 
being filled by the Hostess Houses. They are 
solving satisfactorily one of the most difficult 
problems they had to meet — what to do with 
the women. Women will flock to the training 
camps. They come by the thousands. Many 
of them are from the country and small towns, 
and some of them have never been away from 
home before. Few of them have any concep- 
tion of camp conditions. They expect to go out 
and find the man they have come to visit by ask- 
ing the first person they meet where he is, and, 
having found him, to stay with him for the 
length of their visit in camp. Wives spend 
their last cent traveling to camp, often with 
several small children to look after and loaded 
down with baskets of food from home, only to 
find that their husbands have already gone. A 
mother will learn of her son's serious illness in 
a camp-hospital halfway across the country and 
rush frantically to him, arriving in a state of ex- 
haustion, to discover that the nearest stopping- 
place is ten miles from camp. Foolish young 

113 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

girls, filled with the hysteria of wartime and 
eager to see and talk with the boys who are 
soon to go into battle, forget their normal pru- 
dence and rush to the camps without any idea 
of w^hat they are going to do when they get 
there. 

The urgency of the situation was brought to 
the attention of the War Council of the Young 
Women's Christian Association when it assem- 
bled in the summer of 1917, for this societj^ had 
been intimately concerned with safeguarding 
the interests of women during more than fifty 
years of national peace. The War Council, 
numbering one hundred members, was formed 
to protect all women affected by the war. They 
signified their willingness to cooperate w^ith the 
commissions by opening Hostess Houses within 
camps where they were desired by the com- 
manding officers. 

Work similar to that done through the Hos- 
tess House had been carried on successfully by 
the Y. W. C. A. at the San Francisco Exposi- 
tion, where it had been found to fill a legitimate 
place. To their efforts in behalf of the women- 

114 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

visitors there, in fact, was attributable mucli 
of the high moral tone of the exposition. In ad- 
dition to this work, they maintained a building 
exclusively for the comfort and pleasure of the 
women who took part in the exposition. It was 
the first time, perhaps, that the well-being of 
women-jugglers and acrobats, snake-charmers, 
freaks, and the fortune-tellers of a show had 
received serious consideration. 

A year ago last summer, during the Mexican 
trouble, the Y. W. C. A. sent women to San An- 
tonio and El Paso, and to Douglas, Arizona, to 
meet abnormal social conditions among the 
thousands of young girls who flocked there. In 
Douglas, for instance, a town of less than twenty 
thousand inhabitants, they found girls of all 
races, colors, and conditions. Many of them 
could not speak English. Study clubs, gym- 
nasium classes, and social organizations were 
formed among them. Any branch of Y. W. C. 
A. work that seemed applicable to their needs 
was established there. Older women became in- 
terested and came into the work, and the activi- 
ties were finally broadened out to appeal to 

115 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

women of all ages. One of the women-workers 
there told me that she had enrolled an active 
member one hundred and eight years of age and 
another only eight years old. 

Since they had successfully met emergencies 
such as these, it was felt that the Y. W. C. A. 
was well fitted to take charge of similar work 
within the camps. Of the $5,000,000 fund with 
which they began their wartime activities, $1,- 
500,000 was appropriated for Hostess Houses. 
There are about seventy of these buildings al- 
ready in operation. Some of the larger canton- 
ments have two, or even three where the num- 
ber of negro troops makes one seem desirable 
for colored women. 

When from thirty thousand to sixty thousand 
young men are gathered together in a training 
camp or station, where discipline of necessity 
disregards the individual and where each man 
is but a cog in the machinery of warfare, there 
is nothing on earth the majority of them want 
so much as to see their families and friends. 
Many of them are mere boys, especially those 
who have volunteered in the navy. A comfort- 

116 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

able, cheerful spot where they may go and spend 
their time off with mothers, wives, or sweet- 
hearts has given a new meaning to life for 
them. After such a visit the boy goes back to 
the discipline of his man-made world with new 
courage and a new readiness to do his whole 
duty. 

The Hostess House is usually built near the 
entrance of the cantonment or training-station, 
and is placed so as to be easily accessible to visi- 
tors. The buildings are like large bungalows 
and are a decided ornament to the camps. 
They vary in size according to the peculiar 
needs of the camps, but their general architect- 
ural plans are similar. Women-architects have 
had their construction in charge and have 
striven to attain the utmost degree of attractive- 
ness inside and out. The plan for the building 
at Camp Gordon was entirely redrawn in order 
to save three fine old oak-trees. The main fea- 
tures of all Hostess Houses are also much the 
same. Everywhere the very heart of the house 
is the big chimney in the middle of the huge liv- 
ing-room, where in a double fireplace log-fires 

117 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

burn when they are needed. There is a parcel 
checking-room, and a rest-room for women, out 
of which opens a fully-equipped nursery, for 
many babies are brought to see their soldier 
daddies. A cafeteria serves excellent food to 
all who arrive hungry, and this is the only part 
of the service for which any charge is made. 
The buildings are electric-lighted and steam- 
heated, as are also the broad sun-parlors, 
usually extending across two sides of the build- 
ing. 

Some of the women from the Hostess House 
meet every arriving train, to make sure that no 
woman is left to wander about the camp alone 
while seeking her soldier. With the ** Travel- 
ers' Aid," whom the Commissions have asked to 
come into the railroad stations near the camps, 
these women are ready to render any assistance 
posssible to visitors and to take them to the 
Hostess House. 

On visiting days and over the week-end every 
quiet corner of the big, attractive living-room 
holds its soldier with his girl, its man with his 

118 






W 




>^ 



o I-:] 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

mother, a little family party, or a chattering 
group of young people. The settees and high- 
backed chairs, the cushioned rockers and divans 
are filled with cozy gossipers drawn up around 
the fireside. They linger together, these men 
and their folks, over a little supper brought 
from home and spread temptingly on one of the 
cafeteria tables. Some one at the piano will be 
playing an old haunting melody or a cheerful 
tune that makes a cheerful background for the 
conversation, and it is all surprisingly like the 
gathering together of a big, happy family. The 
ferns and potted plants, the bright, harmonious 
coloring of the chintz hangings, and bits of cop- 
per and brass lighten and brighten and lend a 
glow to the "mission" interior with its heavy- 
beamed ceiling and its substantial furnishings. 
The women in the Hostess Houses are not only 
trained to meet all sorts of emergencies, but 
are sympathetic and tireless in the mere routine 
of entertaining visitors. This alert personal 
interest, with never a suggestion of intrusion 
into the privacy of a family gathering, accounts, 

121 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

I believe, as much as the inviting interior of 
these houses for their being christened "the 
home spot of the camp." 

Here is a new handling of the human equa- 
tion in the training of fighters, a matter that has 
always been the concern of the great masters 
of warfare, but which has never before been 
worked out to this degree. It cannot fail to 
have a salutary effect on even the crudest per- 
sonality that comes within its influence. It 
helps to clarify the idea and the ideals of de- 
mocracy, the principles for which these men of 
ours are fighting. 

One evening about six o'clock I saw a weary- 
looking elderly couple sitting near the front 
door of one of the Hostess Houses, anxiously 
watching every man in uniform who appeared. 

"Is there anything we can do for you I" one 
of the women finally asked them. 

"Well, Miss," the old man replied, "we wrote 
him we was a-comin' and we 've waited here 
since noon. Finally his lieutenant said we 'd 
better come here to this place, and he would 
send the boy on over, but he ain't come yet. 

122 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

We '11 have to be gettin' on back now before 
long to take the train." 

The young woman went to the telephone and 
called up the headquarters of the man's bat- 
talion. In ten minutes the door burst open and 
a very boyish-looking soldier had an arm around 
each of his parents, while they laughed and 
wiped their eyes. 

Dozens of such visits are arranged on visiting 
days by the secretary at the main desk. A 
young mother dragged herself wearily into one 
of the Hostess Houses and sank into the near- 
est chair. 

''I 've come to show my baby to its father," 
she said. "He was called away before it was 
born, and I want to see him as soon as possible." 

The secretary called up the father's regi- 
mental headquarters, and then put the woman 
to sleep on one of the couches in the rest-room. 
In a little while the husband came dashing eag- 
erly across the parade-ground and into the 
room, asking for his wife and baby. He was 
led to the rest-room door, and the little family 
was left together. 

123 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

You would have to spend a day in a Hostess 
House to get an idea of the number and kind 
of inquiries that reach the secretary's desk, 
ranging all the way from how to adopt a child 
to where a young officer can borrow a pair of 
riding-breeches for his girl. At the Camp 
Lewis house the average number of visitors is 
2500 a day. Within two weeks 12,604 people 
were served in the cafeteria, 2577 women used 
the rest-room, 218 children were placed in the 
nursery, 424 women were put in touch with their 
relatives in camp, and 173 visitors made tele- 
phone calls. 

When the first Hostess House was started at 
Plattsburg, it did not take very well with the 
army. Some of the older officers said that to 
have women in the camps was the last thing they 
wanted. It appeared like an attempt to bring 
feminine influence into the military environment 
of the camp. But it was interesting to note 
how, as soon as one house was in operation, the 
idea spread throughout the country, until now 
Mr. Fosdick frequently receives indigiiant let- 
ters from commanding officers who say they 

124 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

have been discriminated against. It is doubt- 
ful if there will ever again be a United States 
Army Post without a Hostess House. The offi- 
cers who at first said, "Send along anything 
you want to, but keep those Hostess Houses 
away," are now the warmest friends of the idea. 
They have seen how the buildings, if they did 
nothing else w^hatever, would more than justify 
their existence by furnishing a place for women 
who come to visit their relatives in the hospitals. 
A rather gruff-looking captain dropped into 
the Hostess House in one of the camps just to 
see what the place was like. He was shown 
over the house, upstairs and down, and through 
the bedrooms and the emergency sleeping-quar- 
ters with its long row of cots for women who 
might be stranded in camp. He finally decided 
that he would stay to lunch. Afterward he sat 
by the fire watching various family groups. 
He saw a mother weep for joy over her son's 
fine appearance. He saw a young couple whis- 
pering together in a cozy corner, half -hidden by 
a big potted plant. A quartet had brought in 
their stringed instruments and were strumming 

125 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

away merrily in another corner. Laughter and 
happiness and comfort were everj^where visible. 
Finally he went over and shook hands with the 
hostess. 

''Madam," he said, "I wasn't mucli for this 
place being put here, but now I see what it is 
doing. Some day you will wear a halo." 

The houses were not opened with any idea of 
furnishing entertainments. Parties or any reg- 
ular programs, it was considered, would inter- 
fere with the regular hospitality. It was not at 
first considered desirable to have music, either. 
The function of the Hostess House was simply 
to furnish a bright and cheerful home spot, but 
it is already filling many more needs that ex- 
isted. The men have come to feel in a sur- 
prising sort of way that the Hostess House is 
their exclusive property. They know that they 
can always find a hearty welcome whenever they 
have a free hour and women to talk with them if 
they feel lonely. There are times when they 
like to go there and unburden their hearts. 
There are other times when they simply want 
to sit by the fire and read, or wish to play a 

126 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

game of checkers with a pal. They come for a 
cup of hot coffee and a sandwich. *'I Ve come 
over to take a look at you all. It gives me cour- 
age for my exam," a young man going up for 
his commission remarked to one of the women. 
He had dropped in on his way to appear before 
the Examination Board, and he lingered to have 
something to eat. An hour or so later he came 
joyfully back to tell the good news that he had 
stood the physical test and to receive congratu- 
lations. 

"And it 's all due to the way I come over 
here and feed up," he laughingly explained. 

The Hostess House idea is stamped "Made in 
America," and America is the land where 
women are partners, not chattels. In carrying 
this atmosphere of chivalry toward women into 
the training camps of the army and navy, the 
Government is fostering one of the basic prin- 
ciples of a well-ordered democracy — the sanctity 
of the home. 

"Just to get around and see women, you don't 
know what it means, ' ' I heard a boy remark only 
the other day. It was evidently his first visit 

127 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

to the Hostess House. ''Can I stand on the rug 
in front of the fireplace!" he asked. "It 's the 
first time I 've seen one in so long that I 've for- 
gotten the feel of it under my feet." He finally 
exclaimed to the boy who was evidently showing 
him around: "Gosh, ain't it all nice and re- 
fined! I 'm coming here every day." 

As it happened, I was standing near them 
when he was bashfully led to the door of the 
nursery. His gaze went in amazement from the 
toys ranged around the walls to the little pink 
quilts folded across the foot of the beds. 

"I 'd f orgotten, " he said, "that there was any 
pink in the world ! ' ' 

Home is coming to have a new significance to 
these men in camps. They are learning how 
much they like pink. The Hostess House is 
keeping alive a love of the finer things that are 
sometimes easily lost. 

"I guess a lot of us would be awful reckless 
if it wa'n't for you people," a young soldier 
stopped at the desk to say on his way out. 
"You 've kep' some of us out of the guard 
house." 

128 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

Groups of officers, as well, drop in for after- 
noon tea, and Y. M. C. A. representatives have 
an occasional big luncheon-conference in the 
cafeteria. It is a democratic place. 

Out at Fort Benjamin Harrison one hundred 
and fifty officers arrived in camp in the middle 
of the afternoon, coming on a train that did 
not carry a diner. They were too late for mess, 
so they came directly to the Hostess House. 
That day all the help had quit, rather than be 
vaccinated, but the women went into the kitchen, 
and those men were sent away smiling, with 
plenty of hot coffee, sandwiches, and ice-cream 
under their belts. 

*'It was certainly just like home that day!" 
one of the women exclaimed. "And you know 
what home is with all the help gone and un- 
expected visitors arriving!" 

Music is coming to have a place not at first 
planned in the Hostess Houses. Each one is 
provided with a piano and a victrola, and the 
men often bring their own banjos and ukeleles 
along with them. At Camp Lewis every Satur- 
day afternoon the division adjutant details a 

129 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

band to the Hostess House, and other bands 
from the different regiments play on the balcony 
three times a week. The grand piano is so 
much appreciated by the musicians in camp that 
they stand in line for the opportunity to play it. 
A young man in Camp Jackson, South Car- 
olina, came enthusiastically to the Hostess 
House with an idea. He had discovered a num- 
ber of men in his company with fingers that 
itched for the touch of their favorite instru- 
ments. He thought that in many homes there 
would be mandolins, guitars, and other instru- 
ments that had been relegated to dusty attics 
after ''John" or "Mary" had left home. He 
wanted the women to help him find these instru- 
ments and organize an orchestra. He was put 
into communication with a lady in Columbia 
who was both interested and resourceful, and 
within a few hours the nucleus of his equipment 
had been collected. It consisted of a piano, gen- 
erously donated, a mandolin, a banjo, and a gui- 
tar or two. These men do not count on a long 
stay in camp, but when they go to the front they 
have arranged to have the Hostess House take 

130 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

charge of the instriiments until another orches- 
tra can be organized in that company. 

The demand for breakfast in some of the 
Hostess Houses has been so great that the 
cafeteria people are volunteering to do double 
time to provide it. They have seen the keen 
pleasure of the men over the hot cakes and cof- 
fee, ham and eggs. They come by hundreds on 
Sunday mornings, and there is always a number 
who, for one reason or another, do not have to 
stand reveille during the week, as well as officers 
not on regular duty. 

At Camp Gordon a shopping service was in- 
augurated during the weeks preceding Christ- 
mas. The inquiry ''What shall I buy?" came 
so often to the desk from men who had a limited 
amount to spend on presents that the Hostess 
House women arranged to select the gifts. 
They purchased six hundred in Atlanta, them- 
selves furnishing attractive cards to accompany 
them, and attended to having them properly 
wrapped. 

I think that the attitude of mind that the aver- 
age enlisted man is acquiring toward the Y. W. 

131 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

C. A. is illustrated admirably by the following 
incident. Two boys came to the Hostess House 
with the problem of what to do with a pal just 
out of the hospital and on a furlough. He had 
no family, and did not know where to go or 
what to do. They had advised him to go to 
town, get a comfortable room, and spend his 
time "taking in shows," to keep him cheered 
up. But shows did not seem to offer any partic- 
ular attraction for him in his condition of gen- 
eral depression. They put the matter up to the 
women in charge, who went to town and found 
a gentleman and his wife who had been active in 
the community work for enlisted men. They 
gladly took him into their home on the footing 
of a son, and nursed him back to strength and 
cheerfulness. He came back to camp with a 
w^arm sense of having ' ' folks ' ' of his own. 

* ' He feels that you women have saved his life 
by finding him that fine place to go," his pals re- 
ported, *'and he 's all the time trying to find 
some way to show you how grateful he is." 

No one ever thought of the Hostess House 
functioning in these ways until it began to do so. 

132 



Q 








\ > 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

I have given these instances merely to show the 
place that it is filling in the daily lives of the 
men in the camps. Taking care of women will 
always be its chief aim, and the chief ministry 
of the women stationed there will always be to 
make visiting women comfortable. Many war- 
brides follow their husbands to camp and spend 
their days knitting together in the big living- 
room, waiting for their husbands to be relieved 
from duty and join them. Weddings take place 
there, too. At Camp Meade on one of the 
busiest of Saturday afternoons a young soldier 
whispered into the ear of one of the women that 
he and his girl had decided to get married, so 
could n 't she help them. She could and she did. 
Hundreds of people were in the living-room, 
but until it was almost over none of them knew 
of the lively things that had suddenly begun to 
happen. One of the hostesses had come down 
by train that morning, bringing an armful of 
flowers with her. These were used to decorate 
one of the smaller rooms for the occasion, and 
also for a bridal bouquet. The couple, with the 
bride's mother and a small group of friends, 

135 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

were waiting when the women brought the chap- 
lain in. After the ceremony was over, the 
bridal party discovered a splendid surprise 
awaited them. They were escorted to a table 
where a wedding supper was served by an au- 
gust colored trooper who, in civilian life, had 
been head-waiter at a large and fashionable 
hotel. 

There is no limit to the variety of demands 
made on the hostesses, and some of them are 
amusing. One day an attractive but frivolous 
young girl made her way to the desk and said to 
the woman there, *'I wish to go to France to 
drive a motor-car, or to do something like that. 
Of course I wish you to understand that I am 
willing to pay all of my own expenses, but I 
want you to tell me how I can do this, and if I 
must get married before I go." Close on her 
heels came a stout female who asked where the 
garage could be found. She said she had come 
to call on a gentleman friend, a chauffeur who 
had been drafted into the service. 

The work of the Hostess Houses is most sig- 
nificant. The Young Women 's Christian Asso- 

136 



HOSTESS HOUSES 

ciation is making it not only possible, but 
charming for a man's people to come and see 
him as often as they can while he is still on this 
side of the Atlantic. They are keeping the 
memories of home alive in the man by supplying 
him with a substitute for home. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Xavier Reille, w^ho was sent to this coun- 
try by the French Government in connection 
with teaching our men trench-warfare, has ex- 
pressed the hope that we may carry this insti- 
tution to France before long. 

**The Hostess House," he says, ** would help 
to solve a big difficulty there, and I feel that it 
is going to be one of the ways in which our new 
allies will help us. ' ' 



137 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE POST EXCHANGE 

DOLLARS for doughnuts, more dollars 
for pies, and still more dollars — thou- 
sands of them — for candy, are being spent here 
each week by the soldiers of New England's Na- 
tional Army. They eat more candy — almond - 
bars are their favorite — than the Government 
can buy. They devour whole mountains of 
doughnuts, miles and miles of 'hot dogs,' oceans 
of coffee, lakes of milk, and they spend their 
nickels and dimes and quarters and dollars for 
every conceivable what-not," said the ''Boston 
Post ' ' in commenting on the amazing amount of 
business done by the post exchanges at Camp 
Devens. 

Post exchanges are the series of stores dot- 
ting the grounds of the National Army can- 
tonments, where the soldier may purchase any 
of the small articles, from a button to a song- 

138 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

book, that contribute to his content and comfort. 
Goods are sold here at lower prices than obtain 
in the cities, and the hundreds of thousands of 
dollars made by small trading on a vast scale 
are turned back again to the soldiers' coffers, 
for Uncle Sam is storekeeper. 

Can you imagine a city having a population 
of forty thousand, containing theaters, libraries, 
and dance-halls, with never a sign of a shop in 
which to buy cigarettes or tobacco, sodas or 
chocolate, or soap, handkerchiefs, gloves, and 
boots? 

Clothing, in a limited and exact amount, and 
three square meals a day are furnished by the 
Government, but the small appurtenances nec- 
essary to contentment are left to the individual 
inclination of each man. If he is fond of chew- 
ing gum after meals or in the habit of breaking 
the interim between lunch and dinner with a slice 
of apple pie, if he finds he has shaken his last 
bit of tooth-powder out of the can, if he wants a 
favorite magazine for his own, if he suddenly 
discovers a shortage in his stock of undercloth- 
ing, that is his own affair. 

139 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

It would be a sorry affair if the Government, 
immersed in military preparations, washed its 
hands of the matter there. But just because 
the Government is immersed in military prep- 
arations — preparations from the conscious 
viewpoint that a contented army is a fighting 
army — it is right there that it effectively steps 
in. 

There is nothing more personal about a 
human being than the small purchases that make 
up his daily necessities and luxuries. So it was 
quite natural that the War Department's Com- 
mission on Training Camp Activities should 
tackle the problem of supplying a half million 
men with shoestrings and sodas, with razor- 
blades, and writing-paper. 

Now, if one visits a cantonment of the Na- 
tional Army, he will find a number of long, low 
buildings, about forty by one hundred feet, 
fully stocked with as many different articles as 
the village emporium, dear to the country re- 
cruit. It resembles, in a way, the brilliant col- 
lection of merchandise familiar to the city youth 
at the corner drug-store. Indeed, from a social 

140 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

point of view, the post exchange is the exact 
counterpart of these intimate loitering-places. 
It fills a real need of the young American who 
is in the habit of casually dropping in, lighting 
a cigarette, and discussing the base-ball score 
with his particular pals. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon, despite the 
big dinners due two hours later, there is a gen- 
eral rush to the post exchange for sweet crack- 
ers, apples, coffee, milk, and candy. Candy is 
the most popular, generally speaking, of the 
varied stock. The Division Exchange Officer at 
Camp Custer says: "Candy, primarily, seems 
to be a woman's commodity, but the amount of 
it consumed by the men in camp is astonishing. 
We have to order huge quantities to meet the 
demand." A noteworthy feature of the buy- 
ing is that candy and other edibles, such as 
cookies and biscuits, have a larger selling value 
when put up in ''glassine" or oiled paper than 
in cardboard boxes or packages. 

At Camp Meade, Maryland, the articles most 
in demand are a huge cake that costs fifteen 
cents, which, as one of the men said, is a meal 

141 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

in itself, and soft drinks. It is estimated that 
each exchange at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, 
sells one thousand pints of milk daily. The 
New Englanders are also fond of candy. They 
eat carloads of it, showing a preference for 
sweet chocolate. In fact, the man in training 
displays every characteristic of the American 
schoolboy off on a holiday with some pocket 
money. 

In one way, though, the boy in camp has out- 
grown the boy in school. This is in his choice 
of delicacies. The ice-cream, milk, and nour- 
ishing chocolate he eats far exceeds his con- 
sumption of doughnuts, crullers, and pies. 
Pastries are not as good for the men as other 
foods, but the army doctors who keep a sharp 
lookout that Sammie shall not spoil his health by 
injudicious eating between meals do not object 
to them, so long as they are of the standard 
quality demanded by the army. Certain bottled 
temperance drinks have been barred, because 
they were found to contain drugs, and when 
there was an unreasonable use of cough-drops, 
the army physicians decided that all articles of 

142 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

a medicinal nature should be excluded from the 
post exchange and confined strictly to the base- 
hospital. 

There are from eleven to sixteen post ex- 
changes in each camp, approximately one to 
each regiment. Each is in charge of a company 
officer, usually a lieutenant, aided by a steward 
and four or five attendants. In the most elab- 
orately equipped exchange that I saw, in addi- 
tion to the usual stock of edibles and notions, 
there was an endless variety of pennants and 
cushions, a clothing department where the sol- 
dier on leave could hastily replenish his ward- 
robe, a book-and-magazine section, a novelty 
gift-counter, and a jewelry-counter. The last 
two are very popular. Sentiment for home is 
greatly strengthened by the separation that mil- 
itary training entails, and it is frequently ex- 
pressed by little gifts to the ones left behind. 
An article that has found favor with the men 
for this purpose is a handkerchief -case about a 
foot square, with some gay-colored silk on one 
side and an American flag on the other. In a 
short time four thousand of these were sold. 

143 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

At the jewelry-counter are emblems, wrist- 
watches, and rings, especially rings for the men. 
I was told that engagement rings can also be 
purchased through the post exchange, and that 
both officers and men avail themselves of this 
privilege. 

The exchanges for colored troops are much 
like those for the white soldiers as to their con- 
tents. They are identical in structure, with a 
greater preponderance of soft drinks, fewer pen- 
nants and books, and a smaller variety of toilet 
articles and knick-knacks. That the men are 
deeply interested in their possible acquisition of 
avoirdupois is also demonstrated in the post ex- 
change. At one of the exchanges for colored 
troops there is a weighing-machine with a 
capacity of 2800 pennies. After it had been 
there three weeks, it was found to contain 2700 
pennies. The agent was not due until four 
weeks had elapsed so they had to send for him to 
open the machine ! 

There are also traveling exchanges in the 
shape of well-laden motor-trucks. Each ex- 
change has its truck, and when a particular regi- 

144 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

ment hikes away and encamps at a short dis- 
tance as a part of its training, the truck, like a 
good Samaritan, appears on the scene and offers 
welcome refreshment, both liquid and solid. 

An astonishing demand is shown for other 
articles than food. At Camp Lee, Virginia, 
suitcases were placed on sale at $1.50, and sixty 
of them were bought within thirty minutes. 
When a special kind of army trunk was offered, 
the men stood in line to buy them. The amount 
of business done by the exchanges is due, no 
doubt, to the moderate prices maintained. It 
was assumed at the outset that greater profits 
could be made through extensive sales of com- 
modities at a moderate price than through re- 
stricted trading in higher priced ones. This 
policy has been adhered to rigidly. Articles on 
sale in the post exchange never cost more than 
in city stores, and often are less. For instance, 
in the matter of officers ' boots, while the officers 
do not benefit from the profits of the post ex- 
change through regimental and company funds 
as the men do, still they decidedly benefit from 
being able to purchase boots at a reduction of 

145 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

nine or ten dollars. At one exchange more than 
four hundred pairs of a certain kind of field- 
boot for which merchants were asking $26.00 in 
a nearby town were sold at $16.80, the cost plus 
five per cent, profit. 

And yet the post exchanges make money. 
They make it at such a rate that the modern 
romance of big business seems tame beside what 
amounts to the largest chain of department 
stores in the country. Started without funds, 
they not only acquitted themselves of obliga- 
tions in an amazingly short time, but could show 
swiftly increasing assets. Each exchange does 
a business of nearly $1000 a day, and when one 
remembers that there are from eleven to six- 
teen exchanges in each cantonment, it is easy 
to realize that the trade of a year mounts into 
the millions. Three months after the exchanges 
had begun operating the Division Exchange 
Officer in one cantonment reported that the Post 
Exchange owned large and complete stocks, 
hadn't a creditor in the world, boasted a sur- 
plus of more than $200,000 and paid dividends. 

What becomes of this aggregate, piled up 
146 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

from the stream of Sammie's nickels, dimes, 
and quarters? By the Government's arrange- 
ment only Sammie profits. If he puts much 
into the post exchange, so does he get much out 
of it. Back into the company and regimental 
funds go the profits which are expended by their 
respective councils on whatever seems to be most 
needed by the unit. In the old days, when the 
enlisted man 's ration allowance was twelve cents 
a day, the money was usually spent to elaborate 
the mess. Now, with a forty-cent allowance, 
there is small need of adding delicacies to the 
menu, and the larger part of the fund goes for 
extra living comforts, athletic equipment, and 
so on. In one cantonment, at the suggestion 
of the commanding officer, it has been decided 
to put aside the major part of the money as a 
tobacco fund to be used for smokes when the 
soldiers get "over there," the matter of pro- 
curing cigarettes being a much more difficult 
matter than here. One unit has bought musical 
instruments for their band, at an expenditure of 
$1700. Two other regiments have bought hun- 
dreds of dollars' worth of baseball equipment, 

147 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

including uniforms for company and regimental 
teams. Spending small sums at a time for com- 
pany affairs, such as dinners and dances, is an- 
other way the men have of eating and keeping 
the post exchange cake. The unexpected effect 
this arrangement sometimes creates was shown 
in an incident at Camp Custer. Shortly after 
the first exchange was opened there in a perma- 
nent building the business amounted to from 
$1200 to $2000 a day. At the time there was a 
large number of negroes among the eight thou- 
sand workmen used by the quartermaster and 
contractor. One evening, when all the windows 
were crowded with a mass of humanity trying to 
buy cigars, cigarettes, candy, soap, towels, etc., 
a negro workman yelled to the officer in charge : 

*'Say, boss, where do all de profits from dis 
yere business go?" 

**Why, to the soldiers," the officer replied. 

''Is dat so, boss? Well den, dey sure can 
call ma number any time ! ' ' 

Besides giving the men in camp an opportun- 
ity to purchase necessities and luxuries at min- 

148 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

imum cost and to share in the profits, the Post 
Exchange also makes it easy for the soldier to 
procure these comforts in a manner that con- 
tributes to his good standing. It extends credit 
to the soldier. What this means can be real- 
ized only by the man who finds his pockets empty 
with pay-day two weeks behind and require- 
ments two weeks ahead. To many of the men, 
credit is a new experience. It is a convenience 
of which they are getting a first taste, and 
this contributes to their self-respect and self- 
esteem. 

A sense of responsibility comes with the new 
privilege. This, again unlike the distinctions 
of private life, affects the man whose private 
income trebles his military wage, as well as the 
chap who counts his all in Government pay. 
One must plan his buying with discretion, for 
no one's credit exceeds one third of his pay. 
A tendency on the part of the novice to wade 
recklessly into a sea of debt is removed, and the 
careless habits acquired by sons of over-indul- 
gent fathers are checked. As an incentive to 

149 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

good behavior, even this credit is given only 
to the soldier whose conduct is good, and it 
ceases if he acquires a bad mark. 

Credit is not given at all the camps, but where 
it is in vogue the exact amount to be extended 
to each individual is fixed by the company com- 
mander. Two-dollar coupon books containing 
twenty coupons are issued. When a man ''goes 
broke," he applies to the company commander 
and signs a receipt for a coupon-book, after 
which the coupons are accepted as cash by the 
post exchange. On the following pay-day the 
exchange officer is present at the payment of the 
command, and he collects the whole amount due 
as shown by the signed receipts on the credit 
book. This debt is supposed to be settled vol- 
untarily. If the soldier fails to meet it, credit 
is stopped until the debt is discharged. Offi- 
cers, of course, are given credit, and may also 
cash their checks at the post exchange. 

The post exchanges are not a new thing in 
military life, although the latest ones of the 
National Army camps differ in several re- 
spects from the older institutions of the Na- 

150 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

tional Guard and Regular Army posts. The 
development of the post exchange is an inter- 
esting matter. Its beginnings were made dur- 
ing the Civil War, when certain civilians formed 
the practice of following the armies and selling 
soldiers whatever they would buy. These trav- 
eling merchants were known as ''sutlers." 
To the sutler, the soldier was simply a customer. 
His interest in the soldier began and ended with 
the sale, and rarely did he stay long at one place. 
Whatever profit the sutler could make was his 
own, and few of them conducted their business 
at a loss. 

Following the Civil War came the great open- 
ing of the West, and with it came the estab- 
lishment of the "post trader" at army posts. 
These post traders also were civilians. Here, 
again, whatever they could make was their own, 
and they improved the opportunity briskly. 
The sale of liquor was permitted, and gradually 
it became the chief article of sale. In the early 
70 's the occupation of "post trader" was abol- 
ished, and the "canteen" was established under 
Government supervision. Here began the shar- 

151 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

ing of the soldier in the profits of his own pur- 
chases. Beer and light wines were sold. The 
profits of the canteen went into the company 
mess. The canteen continued until 1901, but 
its activity was limited largely to the selling of 
beer and operating a restaurant. A few years 
after the Spanish-American War an Act of 
Congress was passed that prohibited the selling 
of liquor at the canteen, and the name was 
changed to ''post exchange." The scope of the 
post exchange became vastly greater than that 
of the old canteen, and thoughtful provision 
was made to take care of the personal needs of 
the men. In this form they have continued, and 
to-day they exist in the Regular Army posts 
and National Guard camps. 

But in setting out to establish almost in- 
stantly a chain of cooperative stores in each 
National Army cantonment, the commission 
found itself confronted with a difiicult situation 
that required new provisions to meet the emer- 
gency. Under the old regulations, each unit 
made its own provisions for a post exchange. 
Funds to buy fixtures for the store and initial 

152 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

stocks were secured by a gift, the proceeds of a 
base-ball game, or by subscription among the 
men. The delay involved in such procedure 
was not compatible with the urgency of the new 
situation. It was now necessary that supplies 
and equipment be bought for a number of stores 
in each cantonment without delay. Ordinarily, 
all exchanges are conducted on a strictly cash 
basis. These of the National Army had to in- 
augurate their career in a different way; they 
purchased their initial stocks on from sixty to 
ninety days' time from merchants who were 
convinced that the project was sound, on the 
assumption that, even with a small margin of 
profit, their vast sales would enable them to 
make good. This plan, indeed, justified itself, 
for it is a matter of record that, beginning with 
a capital of nothing, the post exchanges in an 
amazingly short time were paying dividends on 
a large scale. 

Formerly, each regimental officer kept his 
own set of books and had direct commercial re- 
lations with jobber and manufacturer. Under 
the new circumstances, however, it was neces- 

153 



KEEPING OUE FIGHTERS FIT 

sary that the buying and expenditures of each 
camp be controlled by one central authority. 
This condition involved the creation of the post 
of Division Exchange Officer, and the commis- 
sion set about enlisting the services of business 
men of assured qualifications, whom it recom- 
mended to the War Department for commis- 
sions as Division Exchange Officer with the rank 
of captain. A uniform system of accounting 
was also drawn up. 

The exchanges are under the immediate man- 
agement of the Division Exchange Officer, who, 
in turn, is under the jurisdiction of the exchange 
council, composed of commissioned representa- 
tives from the organizations that participate in 
their profits. The sixteen Division Exchange 
Officers include men who are known as "cap- 
tains of industry" and who have left large com- 
mercial enterprises to help the Government give 
the soldiers a place to shop. They have suc- 
ceeded in establishing chains of army stores that 
would do credit to any private corporation. 

Unlike the privately-owned store, however, 
the post exchange holds for the boys in camp 

154 



THE POST EXCHANGE 

an attraction that is peculiarly and entirely its 
own, just as each other commission activity is 
distinguished by a characteristic feature. For 
instance, the Library claims truly that it is the 
only quiet place where fellows can read; the 
Hostess House is the only place where a fellow 
can entertain his friends; and the Post Ex- 
change, the fellows say, is the only place that is 
absolutely their own. They support it and 
share in its profits. Here they are their own 
guests. 

The post exchange is a natural ice-breaker. 
It gives rise to many friendships and constantly 
strengthens them with its encouragement of the 
sociable habit of dropping in at a convenient 
place with one's cronies for some light refresh- 
ment between times. It corresponds to an im- 
portant phase of civil life, and fills what would, 
otherwise be a definite gap by supplying the 
normalities of home to the men in camp. 



155 



CHAPTER IX 

EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CAMP 

BROADLY speaking, all military training is 
educational, but, strange as it may at first 
appear, education in its restricted sense, begin- 
ning with the three R's, is provided in the 
camps. It will be difficult for some people to 
understand why a soldier or a sailor needs to 
know anything besides the practice of fighting. 
Why must a man know how to read books, to 
write his name, and to figure sums? Do these 
help him to smash the Hindcnburg line? And 
surely there can't be more than a dozen men in 
our whole army or navy who are unable to do 
these things ! 

Men of all kinds have been gathered in by the 
draft. They come from colleges, from shoe- 
stores, from iron-foundries, from sweat-shops, 
and from street-corners. Others come from 
farms and mines and the remote mountain dis- 

156 



EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CAMP 

tricts. Some of them speak and write the 
king's English; some, alas, the kaiser's German, 
with a strong American accent ; and others any- 
thing, from a Russian dialect to Chinese. 

It does not admit of argument that a soldier 
must understand the orders of his superiors; 
so it is a matter of basic efficiency to teach him 
English, if he has not learned it before coming 
into the service. The necessity of a man's be- 
ing able to find his way from signboards about 
the camp makes it apparent that the ability to 
read is almost as important. It is possible for 
a fighter to draw his pay, even if he cannot 
write his name, but he can get it more quickly, as 
well as retain his self-respect, if he does n't have 
to go through the formality of having it written 
and making a cross, ''his mark," after it. As 
to arithmetic, its rudiments are a great advan- 
tage to the man who would become a good 
marksman with a rifle. 

These are the reasons, reduced to simplest 
terms, for educational work in the camps. In 
addition, it might be said that it promotes clear 
thinking, and it is almost axiomatic that the 

157 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

more clearly a man thinks, the better he fights. 

The percentage of illiteracy in this country is 
small, so that the greatest need for education 
of an elementary sort is among our foreign- 
born soldiers. Some of these have lived in col- 
onies composed almost wholly of people of their 
own nationality, and, lacking the actual need of 
English, they have failed to learn it. They 
have been beyond the legal school age when 
they landed, and have had no opportunity or 
desire to improve themselves beyond the point 
of being able to make a living. Some of the men 
who come from the remote mountain districts of 
this country are also unable either to read or to 
write. Among them were draftees who, when 
they reached the cantonment, thought they had 
arrived in France ! 

The Commission's special educational com- 
mittee is responsible for the work, much of 
which is directed by the Y. M. C. A. Desire for 
study among the men is stimulated. A sec- 
retary casually asks one of the men : 

''How would the folks at home like to get a 
letter from you ? ' ' 

158 



EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CAMP 

** Can't write," is the expected reply. 

**You can learn; would you like to?" and an- 
other recruit is made a more useful member of 
democracy. 

His people, who receive his letters when he 
learns to write them, may have to walk a mile 
to their nearest reading neighbor to hear the 
news they contain, but that is an unimportant 
detail, except that it may lead to their learning 
to read themselves. 

In carrying the school-room to the canton- 
ment, great care is exercised in regard to the 
sensitiveness of adults who are unable to read 
and write, and it is to the credit of the pupils 
that they show a fine purpose and spirit in their 
efforts. The teacher is cautioned to respect 
their feelings, and his success depends largely 
on the amount of tact that he displays. It is 
quite different from an ordinary class. The 
rigid discipline of the training field is relaxed, 
and the instructor meets his men on a basis of 
friendliness and confidence. 

Methods have to be adapted to conditions, but 
in teaching English to foreigners the instructor 

161 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

generally endeavors to motivate the lessons. 
For instance, he will ask the class to say in con- 
cert such sentences as: ''I am a soldier of 
America"; "I am fighting for democracy"; 
' ' democracy is the rule of the people. ' ' The in- 
dividual members repeat these phrases. Thus 
our new citizens learn both the language of the 
country and the meaning of its privileges. 
This system is applied to the requirements of 
the soldiers' everyday lives, so that they learn 
the names of the camp paraphernalia, what they 
eat and wear, and the meaning of military com- 
mands. The course is practical, first and last, 
and formal grammar and rhetoric have no place 
in it. 

Among the principal texts used in the initial 
stages of instruction are "The Roberts Series," 
a course of lessons on military English prepared 
by George W. Tupper in collaboration with the 
military authorities of Camp Devens and Dr. 
Peter Roberts of the International Committee 
of the Y. M. C. A., and the ''Soldier's First 
Book." The latter book was prepared by Mrs. 

162 



EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CAMP 

Cora Wilson Stewart, whose experience in work 
among the illiterate mountaineers of the South 
made her an authority. It teaches not only the 
rudiments of reading and writing, but ideals as 
well. It is a good-humored little book, too, as 
may be seen from the eighth lesson: 

Let us play a joke on a rookie. 

All right. 

What shall it be? 

Send him after a key. 

A key to what ? 

A key to the parade-ground. 

Is that a joke? 

Can you not see it ? 

No, I cannot. 

Did you ever see a key to a field? 

No. I see. The joke is on me. 

In the book are reflected camp life and the 
ideals of a democracy, and it will help to pre- 
serve both on a high place. Other texts used 
carry out the same general idea through the 
various grades for which they are intended. 
The three R's are compulsory in most camps 
where they are necessary, but they are made 

163 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

interesting and enjoyable, and there is less of 
discipline in the class-rooms than in the public 
schools. 

So much for the elementary work. Educa- 
tion in the camps goes a long way beyond that. 
There are intermediate courses in history and 
geography that show the backgrounds and local- 
ities of the war. There are those that prepare 
men for transfer from one branch of the 
service to another, and for promotion. These 
include mathematics, report-writing, bookkeep- 
ing, stenography, typewriting, telegraphy (wire 
and wireless), telephony, engineering, naviga- 
tion, warehousing, and scientific management. 
There are also college-grade courses along con- 
siderably higher lines ; special courses, like pub- 
lic speaking, short-story writing, memory-train- 
ing, and psychology; and university extension 
courses. Certainly, the characterization of the 
army and navy as ''the larger university" was 
an apt one. 

Then there is French, some knowledge of 
which is an undeniable asset to the fighter in 
France. In some camps it is a compulsory 

164 



EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CAMP 

study for selected groups of officers and men, 
but in all of them it is a popular one. At Camp 
Wadswortli recently it was found that ninety- 
two per cent, of the men desired it. 

It is "trench French" that they are learning, 
rich in the vernacular of the poilu, and in the 
little text-book that they use, "Premier Se- 
cours," there are no reminders of high school 
French, such as, "I give the red copy-book to 
the aunt of my father." Instead, there are 
really usable words and phrases in regard to 
living, eating, traveling, fighting, and the like. 
The soldier learns that "Je m'en fiche'* means, 
"I don't give a hang about it," and that when 
he would say to an American, "Beat it," he 
would tell a Frenchman, *'Fiche-moi la paix." 
A soldier in high school vernacular is a soldat, 
but in the trenches he is a pioupiou. Money is 
not argent; it is la g alette. 

There are other bits of vernacular in this 
book that are equally interesting. "I have 
pawned my watch" is rendered, ''Ma montre 
est chez ma tante," aunt being equivalent to 
the American "uncle" as a euphemism for 

165 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

pawnbroker. "Vous hlaguez" is French for 
''You 're kidding," and ^'Qu'est-ce que vous me 
chantez Idf" (What are you singing to me 
about?) is the equivalent for ''What are you bat- 
ting about?" Most of these phrases and ex- 
pressions, it is perhaps needless to say, cannot 
be found in either the dictionary or grammar, 
but it is possible that one day they may be placed 
there. Camouflage was once a slang expres- 
sion; now it is not only in good French usage, 
but it will doubtless find a place in the next 
English dictionary. 

Other foreign languages than French are 
taught where there is a demand for them. Rus- 
sian, Italian, Spanish, and even German are 
given to those who want them. In fact, a man 
can get instruction in almost any subject. One 
man asked for a course in embalming, and an 
instructor was found for him. 

Instructors are recruited from all sources. 
Many men from the ranks are teaching French 
and other subjects, and occasionally you find an 
officer studying under one of the privates in his 
company. Men and women from nearby towTis 

166 



EDUCATIONAL WORK IN CAMP 

volunteer their services for certain specified 
evenings, and a large proportion of the rest of 
the teachers are officers or Y. M. C. A. secre- 
taries. 

This educational work has another value dis- 
tinct from any that I have previously mentioned. 
There are any number of splendidly educated 
men in the ranks who might otherwise be lonely 
for intellectual companionship. Officers can- 
not be chummy with their men, even in the most 
democratic army in the world, without running 
the risk of being charged with favoritism and 
placing themselves and the men in an anoma- 
lous position. One man in a company may be 
literary in his tastes, while the rest are decid- 
edly the opposite. He may be on the best of 
terms with his fellows and share in their activi- 
ties with real enjoyment, but there come times 
when he would be glad to match his wits with his 
mental equals, when he could refer to Dr. John- 
son without having it thought that he referred 
to a near relative of a pugilist, or when he 
wished to discuss the new refutation of the Dar- 
winian theory. Occasionally one likes to show 

167 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

that he knows which fork to use at a dinner- 
party. 

These men are given a chance to teach and to 
organize and conduct literary clubs or debating 
societies. They can attend the lectures and 
they can take advantage of the cultural courses 
that are offered. 

In all the efforts along these lines the camp 
librarian cooperates to the utmost. He has the 
means of stimulating and fostering the interest 
of the men, and he uses them unsparingly. He 
will suggest reading correlative to the courses 
that are being pursued, reading courses that are 
partly cultural and partly recreative, or he will 
help a man to look up special information. 

At this writing it is estimated that over 
100,000 men are enrolled in the educational 
classes of Uncle Sam, the largest proportion be- 
ing students of French. The number is grow- 
ing, and the influence of this movement will 
never stop growing. It will help to crush Prus- 
sianism and it will help to strengthen democ- 
racy. 



168 



CHAPTER X 

FITTING THE MAN TO THE COMMUNITY 

A SAILOR lad lay on a davenport of the 
Soldiers' and Sailors' Home Club — one 
of the most homelike that New York has opened 
for the entertainment of fighting men; and one 
noted for a hospitality which extends even to 
furnishing departing visitors with a gift of four 
books each. The boy was suffering from badly 
over-strained eyes. The women of the club 
were discussing what was best to be done when 
the outer door opened and a stately servant in 
plum-colored and gilt-braided livery entered, 
bearing a large suit-case from one of the club's 
patronesses. 

' ' More books, Thomas 1 Just wait a moment 
until we see what we can do for our sick sailor 
here." 

Thomas waited while they discussed calling 
up the Navy Yard. They finally decided to 

169 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

wait until afternoon on the chance of his getting 
better. 

That afternoon Thomas came back. 

*' Pardon me, ma'am," he said, **but if I may 
make so bold, my wife was concerned about the 
young gentleman. You see we have a son of 
our own, and she ventured to send this along — " 
He dug down into his pocket and brought out a 
small bottle of camphor. 

*'She says camphor water, weak and warm, 
is soothing to the eyes." 

In the beginning the Commissions on Train- 
ing Camp Activities, realizing that one of their 
greatest problems was the adjustment of social 
conditions arising from the proximity of camps 
to cities, and from the shore leave of thousands 
of sailors, turned over to the Recreation Asso- 
ciation of America the responsibility of fitting 
the men to the communities. 

This organization was equal to the occasion. 
It sent out members of its staff to all cities in 
the United States that were adjacent to camps 
or cantonments under construction, with instruc- 

170 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

tions to mobilize the hospitality of these places 
to aid the men of our new army and navy. This 
was done in a systematic and efficient manner. 
The chambers of commerce, boards of trade, 
rotary clubs, fraternal organizations, Y. M. 
C. A's., churches, and similar organizations 
were told what they could do toward making 
their communities attractive and safe for sol- 
diers and sailors, and also toward anticipating 
difficulties that might arise from suddenly hav- 
ing forty thousand men unloaded at their doors. 

It was the beginning of the biggest "get to- 
gether" movement in history. It changed the 
attitude of hundreds of cities and towns. Dur- 
ing a trip through the West last summer I heard 
business men discussing the stimulating effect 
that the cantonments would have on the com- 
munities near which they were to be located. 
*'It '11 mean a lot to Atlanta," I heard a candy- 
manufacturer from that city say, and there were 
many similarly optimistic expressions all the 
way to the Pacific Coast. 

Presently, however, the question was not, 
''What are the soldiers going to do for usT* 

X71 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

but ''What can we do for the soldiers?" The 
War Camp Community Service, the name under 
which the city and town divisions are organized, 
began to develop into a living, pulsating, practi- 
cal organism, and at this writing there are over 
one hundred and thirty secretaries in the field 
who are working toward the linking up of 
the interests of soldier and community. Two 
hundred cities and towns have taken up the 
service, and thousands upon thousands of vol- 
unteer workers are making this service possible. 
They have found out what they can do for the 
soldiers, and they are doing it. 

Our army and navy comprises approximately 
a million and a half average American men. 
If, then, you are a reasonably normal American, 
you can judge fairly closely as to what your re- 
actions to a week-end leave of absence would be 
after living for some time in a strictly military 
environment. You would, first of all, go to 
town. You would look up any friends that you 
might happen to have there, and you would be 
open to their suggestions as to amusement. 
You would seek a change from the food pro- 

172 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

vided by Uncle Sam. Restaurants would give 
you a pleasing variety, but your thoughts could 
not help but wander to the subject of home- 
cooking. 

But suppose that you were hundreds of miles 
from your home, and that you knew no one in 
the city near the camp. And suppose that your 
financial condition did not warrant your taking 
more than a five-dollar bill to defray the ex- 
penses incidental to your little jaunt. Isn't it 
likely that the glamor of the city would pale 
after a few hours! Isn't it possible that you 
might be tempted, because you were lonely and 
thought that nobody cared? 

An antidote for loneliness and the blues has 
been provided by the Recreation Association of 
America, working through the various agen- 
cies that have rallied to its aid. The organiza- 
tion has evolved a remarkable system, a system 
with a personality. It proves that machinery 
may have a heart. 

Census cards have been secured with the help 
of the commanding officers of the camps. On 
each one is a man's name, his church, frater- 

173 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

nity, college, professional or trade affiliations; 
all of which make it possible to put him in touch 
with groups of congenial people. The man's 
hobby or favorite form of recreation is also in- 
dicated on the card; and this combination of 
data makes it possible for the local committee 
or organizations or individuals to give a per- 
sonal touch to their hosjjitality. 

That is merely a detail, however, to indicate 
the thoroughness of the system. One of the 
first evidences of a city's hospitality that the 
fighting man on leave would see are the Service 
Clubs — the Khaki Clubs, Soldiers' and Sailors' 
Clubs, and the like — where a man's pass, as the 
notices read, is his uniform. It is likewise his 
guarantee of welcome. He has come to realize 
that these clubs are his rightful headquarters, 
that their privileges are his just as much as 
though he had a card of membership and paid 
regular dues. 

The War Camp Community Service of New 
York City publishes a bulletin in which are 
listed such rendezvous. There are nearly a 
hundred of them in Manhattan and Brooklyn 

174 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

alone, and they include Catholic, Jewish, and 
negro organizations, so that neither a man's 
faith nor his color stand in the way of a hos- 
pitable reception. Nor are these clubs exclu- 
sively for American soldiers and sailors ; a man 
wearing the uniform of any of the Allies is 
equally welcome. 

Besides these lists, this bulletin is an in- 
formal guide to the city, always informal and 
sometimes amusing. Here is an item that is 
characteristic : 

NEW yoke's village GREEN 

*'A11 roads lead to Rome" was true once; nowa- 
days all roads in New York lead to Times Square 
after sunset. Times Square is the heart of our vil- 
lage, and everybody comes downtown of an evenin' 
after supper to see what 's goin' on. There 's really 
quite a bit doin', and the village green is quite cheer- 
ful-like of an evenin'. The square fills the inter- 
section of Broadway and Seventh Avenue from 42nd 
to 47th Streets, and has more theaters, hotels, caba- 
rets, and such sprinkled around it than any similar 
spot on earth, so they say. It gets its name from 
the twenty-SLx-story Times Building, where the 
"Times" was formerly published. . . . 



175 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

Another paragraph from this hospitable 
booklet is headed: 

*'easy come, easy go" 

If any one wants to blow in some of his thirty per 
on rolling around town in a taxicab or a hansom, in- 
stead of joining in the regular transit crush without 
whicli the real New Yorker would feel unhappy, here 
are the rates. . . . 

With this book to guide him, no soldier or 
sailor need become lonely in New York. It 
shows him how to see the sights of the city, and 
tells him where he will be sure of a welcome. 
It tells him what the several clubs offer. Some 
are better equipped than others, but in all of 
them is found the same **come right in" brand 
of hospitality. The usual outfit includes a 
big lounging-room, with plenty of easy-chairs, 
couches for those who may wish for a nap, writ- 
ing-tables for the correspondents, victrolas and 
a piano for the musically inclined, and plenty of 
magazines and books. There is usually a can- 
teen, where the boys may get good things to eat 
and drink or smoke at cost, and in some cases 
less. 

176 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

Many of the clubs offer billiards and pool, 
gynasiums, shower-baths, and even swimming- 
pools. At others there is informal dancing 
every evening, or French lessons, *' sings," and 
occasional entertainments. Some of them have 
sleeping accommodations at extremely moder- 
ate rates — a man in uniform can get a bath and 
a night's lodging for as little as twenty-five 
cents. 

So the soldier or sailor on a short leave can 
have a mighty good time in New York on five 
dollars, even if he does not know a soul. The 
War Camp Community Service not only does its 
best to keep him out of trouble, but to give him 
a good time as well. Uncle Sam, working 
through this organization, sees to it that his 
nephew, Sammie, is properly taken care of. 
He makes it possible for the lonely fighting man 
to mix with his own social kind, to meet the right 
sort of women, and to fill his free time away 
from camp in the most agreeable and profitable 
manner possible. The same holds good all over 
the United States. The civilian population of 
every community in the vicinity of a training 

177 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

camp has done its utmost to make the military 
and naval men feel at home. 

"Take a soldier home to dinner" was a slogan 
for a time, but now it has become a habit. 
Within five blocks of a Service Club in New 
York more than three hundred enlisted men 
were invited to private homes last Thanksgiv- 
ing. These men not only had a taste of the 
home-cooking they had so long been without, 
but they had what they needed more — home 
thinking and home talking. *'It sure does a 
man good to eat with real folks,'' said one of 
the soldier-guests at the home of a wealthy pa- 
per-manufacturer. There is more to this hos- 
pitality than the dinner, for usually some young 
people are invited in and there is a party worthy 
of the name. The movement is wide-spread. 
A Chicago man entertains twenty-five men every 
Saturday afternoon. In Lawton, Oklahoma, 
they have "block parties," each city block tak- 
ing its turn in entertaining a company of sol- 
diers. One Sunday thirteen hundred soldiers 
from Camp Mills were entertained at dinner 
by the citizens of Forest Hills, a small commun- 

178 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

ity on Long, Island. The hosts said that they 
especially wanted men who were a long distance 
from home and who had not had much atten- 
tion of this kind. 

Time was when a man in uniform was not 
welcome at public dances and other gatherings. 
This was particularly the case in cities where 
there were military posts or naval bases. In 
Norfolk, Virginia, for instance, a sailor was 
looked upon by many people as a necessary evil, 
and not as a member of good society. That was 
before the draft, when, it must be admitted, the 
enlisted men of the navy did not represent as 
high an average as they do to-day. Some of 
them, in fact, when on shore leave would let 
loose their pent-up animal spirits in a manner 
both distinctive and disconcerting to ordinary 
citizens. 

To-day our sailors are being invited to the 
homes of the best families in Norfolk. There is 
one wealthy resident who entertains from two 
hundred to three hundred men at his country 
home every Saturday, and there are any num- 
ber of people who are no less hospitable on a 

179 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

smaller scale. A beautiful old colonial man- 
sion has been turned into the Imperial Recrea- 
tion Club for men in uniform, and there are 
church-parties galore. The bluejackets hold up 
their heads in Norfolk now, and Norfolk leaves 
the latch-string out. 

Other cities were backward at first about do- 
ing their bit for our fighters. The novelty of 
the whole business did not admit of hasty action. 
There was no precedent by which one could de- 
termine how it would work. 

"This city," wrote a War Camp Community 
Service man from Tacoma, Washington, "has 
been very slow in opening up to the soldiers, but 
it is open now. On any Sunday morning, if one 
walks along the uptown streets, he will see sol- 
diers issue from scores of homes on the way to 
church with the family, or on the way to town 
after a night in a home. I wish I could tell you 
about some of the boys who come to us and ask 
if w^e can get them into a home, and of their 
gratitude after they have been in one. On Sat- 
urday night a young fellow came in whose 
father could buy half of Tacoma. He wanted to 

180 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

know if I could find him a place in a home. We 
found the very spot in a home where they miss 
their own soldier boy and where the mother is 
a lovely lady. ' ' 

It can be seen that personality goes hand 
in hand with efficient organization. When all 
these little human details are traced back to 
the Commission on Training Camp Activities, 
which represents the United States Govern- 
ment, one can grasp to a fuller extent the sig- 
nificance of the movement; and when one real- 
izes that it is all a part of the Government's 
purpose to make better fighters now and better 
citizens after the war, he cannot but wonder at 
the far-sighted policy that inspired it. 

That fact that Demosthenes had an impedi- 
ment in his speech is known to many who never 
read one of his orations, yet in overcoming it he 
taught a lesson greater, perhaps, than is con- 
tained in anything he ever said. So it is that in 
the little personal activities of the organizations 
that are working for the men of our army and 
navy there are some of the best examples of the 
spirit in which this work is being done. Let me 

181 



KEEPING OUE FIGHTERS FIT 

illustrate by quoting again from the Tacoma 
letter : 

Yesterday was a typical day in our office. We 
visited a landlady who had overcharged the wife of 
a young soldier and recovered five dollars. One of 
the military police came in and said that two more 
soldiers' wives were to be turned out by a "shyster" 
landlord. I went up and put the fear of the Com- 
mission into him. Another young wife came in who 
had not had an allotment of pay for some time. I 
had the Eed Cross attend to her for the moment, and 
then looked up the mustering officer and had her pay 
allotment straightened out. ... I also arranged for 
a couple to be married at a friend's house. A young 
Frenchman from San Francisco came in and shyly 
asked if we could send him to a home where there 
was a baby, since he had one at home that he had not 
seen for a long time. We did so. 

How do the men react to all this attention? 
Is there not danger that the rougher element 
among them may take advantage of the hospit- 
able attitude that is shown toward them ? 

When New York began to entertain the men 
on a large scale a good deal of tact was neces- 
sary to handle some of the problems that in- 
evitably arose. At one of the big dances an at- 

182 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

tractive woman on the reception committee 
noticed a soldier leaning against the wall and 
looking rather lonely and miserable. Catching 
his eye, she smiled at him in a frank and 
friendly way, whereupon a knowing look came 
into his face and he winked at her with deliber- 
ate familiarity. 

"He has the old idea of public dances," she 
said to herself; "I '11 have to set him straight." 
So she went over to him and asked him to join 
her. 

**I noticed you refused to dance," she re- 
marked when he was seated beside her, "and I 
thought that possibly you were feeling lone- 
some. My youngest son is a soldier down at 
Spartanburg, and he 's just about your age. 
He gets terribly lonesome sometimes for some- 
body to talk with." 

"Your youngest son!" the youth exclaimed, 
now thoroughly abashed. "Why, you 're aw- 
ful old to look so young. ' ' 

A little later she took him over and intro- 
duced him to her brother-in-law, who had gen- 
eral charge of the affair and who took pains to 

183 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

find out what the boy enjoyed doing. He met 
the hostess's niece, an attractive young girl who 
insisted on his giving her one dance. Before 
the evening was over his story came out. It can 
be summed up succinctly in two of his sentences : 
"I 'm tough; I 'm awful tough. I ain't never 
been used to nice women treating me decent, and 
I don't deserve it." 

The woman's answer reflects splendidly the 
attitude of the Commission on Training Camp 
Activities toward this nation-wide friendliness 
to the uniformed men. 

*' You are going over to fight for us," she said, 
*'and our best is none too good for any of j^ou." 

It is a matter of comment that the churches, 
for the most part, are not using their hospitality 
as an avenue by which religion can be forced on 
those who accept it. 

''None of us will ever forget Grace Church," 
said a lad as he took leave of those who had 
given him and two dozen of his companions a 
luncheon in the parish house after a sight-see- 
ing trip around New York, both of which are 
regular occurrences. They had arrived after 

184 




'A 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

service one Sunday, and they all sat down to a 
table with some of the church people. Most of 
these soldiers and sailors were strangers to each 
other and were in New York for the first 
time, but they were soon chattering like bosom 
friends. Two brothers from the Pacific Coast, 
both sailors, sat side by side. They had not 
seen each other for more than a year until they 
had suddenly come face to face as they were 
starting out that morning. Near them sat an 
aviation cadet and a seaman w^ho found that 
they were fraternity brothers from the same 
college. 

When they finished and the cigarettes had 
been passed around, they were all shoAvn over 
the wonderful old parish house. 

"I just bet you one thing," a soldier re- 
marked as he went away ; "this is n't my denom- 
ination, but I 'm coming down to this church. 
They 've got the right idea here, and if all the 
churches in New York are like this, we have n 't 
done them justice out in Iowa. Say, some of 
them in a towm where I Ve been got a bunch of 
us to go to church, and the preacher did n't do a 

187 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

thing but tell us what would happen to us if we 
were killed in battle and hadn't done what he 
said. Gee! We don't want that sort of talk. 
1 got up and left." 

The functions of the War Camp Community 
Service are almost without number. Drinking- 
fountains have been erected in cities where for- 
merly there were none. Atlanta, Georgia, built 
a comfort station at a cost of $20,000. Other 
cities have done the same. Money and labor 
have been given lavishly to keep our fighters fit 
mentally and morally, to keep them from home- 
sickness and depression. 

Community singing has played a large part 
in the entertainment program, for aside from 
the musical enjoyment that is derived, it has a 
definite function in bringing the soldier and the 
sailor in personal touch with the townsfolk. 
Official hosts and hostesses make introductions, 
and not only do the civilians meet the fighting 
men, but they become acquainted with each 
other. Under the leadership of the camp song- 
coach they sing war songs, the national hymns, 
and the old familiar melodies that everybody 

188 



FITTING MAN TO COMMUNITY 

knows and loves. At the first "community 
sing" attempted at Norfolk, Virginia there were 
four thousand present. People are talking yet 
about the sing conducted by Harry Barnhart 
in Syracuse during the summer of 1917, when 
between five and six thousand men sang the 
"Battle Hymn of the Republic" with telling 
effect. At the stadium of Drake University at 
Des Moines, Iowa, twelve thousand people, civil- 
ians and soldiers, accompanied by three military 
bands, rose to their feet and sang "The Star 
Spangled Banner." These are specific in- 
stances out of hundreds. They indicate a na- 
tion-wide tendency toward a closer community 
spirit that will endure as a by-product of war 
long after peace has come. And, mark you, this 
has been fostered by the Government. 

Many of the branches of the War Camp Com- 
munity Service in the larger towns provide ex- 
cellent vaudeville shows for our fighting men. 
One of the largest of these, held every Sunday 
afternoon, takes place at the big Forty-Fourth 
Street Theater in New York. At two o'clock, 
when the show begins, every seat is filled by a 

189 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

man clad either in olive drab or navy blue. 
They wear their tickets, so to speak. 

The talent at these performances volunteer 
their services, and take their reward in ap- 
plause, which is generous. Such artists as 
Laurette Taylor, who appears frequently, Bil- 
lie Burke, and others no less gifted are among 
those who have entertained these audiences ; and 
although the programs are not too "highbrow" 
for the average man to enjoy, they are always of 
a high order. In the intermissions there is 
singing, and sometimes the men join in the 
chorus of a song that is sung from the stage. 
It is all very informal. 

That, in fact, is the keynote of all this work 
outside the camps. The hours allowed for re- 
laxation are apt to be misused. There are evil 
forces at work to undermine the morals and 
health of the men who are to fight our battles. 
The Commissions on Training Camp Activities 
have set up competitive forces with which to 
combat them, and this is one of them — to give 
the men healthful, interesting recreation while 
they are away from camp. 

190 



CHAPTER XI 

A PROBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

THE prevalence of disease that results from 
personal immorality has been a problem 
in hygiene as long as history has been recorded, 
a problem whose solution has always been made 
exceedingly difficult by two things — pnidery 
and politics. Since 1914 this constantly evaded 
problem has been brought sharply to the front 
because of its vital bearing upon military effi- 
ciency. The devastating influences of venereal 
disease and alcohol upon the fighting effective- 
ness of armies in the past has been demon- 
strated in a pitilessly cold light by the official 
figures of the bulletless casualties of both 
Entente and Teutonic forces. Seventy-eight 
thousand men at one time were under treat- 
ment for venereal disease among the troops of 
one of the nations of the Entente, while Hecht, 
the Viennese scientist, estimates that in the Aus- 

191 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

trian army alone since the war began the equiv- 
alent of sixty divisions of men have at one time 
or another been on the ineffective list through 
venereal disease. This runs the figures well 
over a million, and it means, of course, simply 
this : that these diseased men, incapacitated be- 
hind the lines, have been protected by the troops 
in the front trenches who have kept themselves 
clean. The United States Government, upon 
entering the war, was forced to face the mili- 
tary aspect of the twin problem. It decided in 
favor of absolute repression and it has car- 
ried out this radical and effective policy with 
such tremendous success, it has actually reduced 
to so small an amount vice and drunkenness in 
our army and navy, that it is a fair statement 
that civilian America will have to clarify its 
moral atmosphere if it is to take back its young 
men after the war to an equally wholesome en- 
vironment. 

Within six weeks after America entered the 
war there was enacted into law by Congress a 
policy in regard to prostitution and the liquor- 
traffic in connection with men in the service that 

192 



A PEOBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

was unique in the history of the world. Under 
authority given by Sections 12 and 13 of the 
Selective Service Law, the President and Sec- 
retaries of War and the Navy were empowered 
to create zones around military and naval es- 
tablishments within which houses of prostitu- 
tion and traffic in alcoholic liquor were barred. 
Moreover, everywhere the sale of liquor to sol- 
diers and sailors was forbidden. The Secre- 
tary of War and the Secretary of the Navy 
were not only empowered "to do everything 
by them deemed necessary" to protect men in 
military training from prostitution, but they 
were directed so to do as a war emergency 
measure. 

"Our responsibility in this matter is not open 
to question," said Secretary of War Baker in 
a letter sent to the governors of all the states. 
"We cannot allow these young men, most of 
whom will have been drafted to service, to be 
surrounded by a vicious and demoralizing en- 
vironment; nor can we leave anything undone 
which will protect them from unhealthy influ- 
ences and crude forms of temptation. Not only 

193 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

have we an inescapable responsibility in this 
matter to the families and communities from 
which these young men are selected, but, from 
the standpoint of our duty and our determina- 
tion to create an efficient army, we are bound, 
as a military necessity, to do everything in our 
jDower to promote the health and conserve the 
vitality of the men in the training camps. I 
am determined that our new training camps, 
as well as the surrounding zones within an ef- 
fective radius, shall not be places of temptation 
and peril. In short, our policy is to be one of 
absolute repression, and I am confident that in 
taking this course the War Department has 
placed itself in line with the best thought and 
practise that modern police-experience has de- 
veloped. 

''The War Department intends to do its full 
part in these matters, but we expect the co- 
operation and support of the local communities. 
If the desired end cannot otherwise be achieved, 
1 propose to move the camps from those neigh- 
borhoods in which clean conditions cannot he 
secured." 

194 



A PROBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

Immediately there was thrown upon the War 
and Navy Departments the burden of devising 
ways and means to carry out not only the letter, 
but the spirit of the law. Liquor and vice had 
to be repressed in the vicinity of camps. The 
responsibility was laid upon the Commissions 
on Training Camp Activities by Secretaries 
Baker and Daniels, and the program of repres- 
sion was started forthwith. Under the com- 
mission a division of law enforcement was cre- 
ated, consisting of a staff of civilians and army 
and navy officers, mostly lawyers — a staff built 
up under the personal supervision of the chair- 
man. Representatives of the division were sta- 
tioned for duty in the communities adjacent to 
the camps and were ordered to keep the Secre- 
taries of War and Navy reliably informed of 
moral conditions, as well as to bring the pro- 
gram of the Government to the attention of 
local officials. Through the cooperation of the 
Surgeon-General of the Army, Sanitary Corps 
officers were assigned to the commission for 
law enforcement work in connection with their 
other duties in the field, and the Navy Depart- 

195 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

ment similarly made several officers available. 
In its first important task of gathering full and 
accurate information as to actual conditions in 
the neighborhood of camps, the commission was 
assisted by the representatives of the Depart- 
ment of Justice, the Army and Navy Intelli- 
gence Departments, as well as the staffs of such 
organizations as the American Social Hygiene 
Association, the Committee of Fourteen of New 
York, the Committee of Fifteen of Chicago, and 
the Bureau of Social Hygiene of New York. 

It was obviously an undertaking that required 
the sincere cooperation of hundreds of local 
officials throughout the country. Many ''red 
light" districts, some legalized and others tol- 
erated despite the local law, were found to ex- 
ist within the zones. Public opinion had con- 
doned their existence. At first, in many in- 
stances the representatives of the commissions 
were greeted with absolute astonishment when 
they said that the Government was determined 
to have a clean army and navy, and that it 
meant what it said. Despite the drastic char- 
acter of the regulations, the wide publicity given 

196 



A PROBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

them, and the forceful exposition of them in 
personal letters from the Secretary of War to 
the mayors and sheriffs of the country, there 
were men in civil life and in the army who 
could not believe that the policy to tolerate the 
ravages of deadly communicable disease as a 
necessary evil was now to be really changed. 

There was, for instance, a certain city in the 
South near which a military camp had been 
established by the War Department. After in- 
vestigation by agents of the Commissions on 
Training Camp Activities the Secretary of War 
wrote to the mayor of the city, requesting that 
the commercialized vice that was found to be 
overrunning the town and injuring the efficiency 
of the troops be wiped out summarily. With 
something of a touch of pride the mayor replied 
that it was impossible that his town could be 
the scene of such conditions. Indeed, he flatly 
denied the existence of any such evil in his 
city. Mr. Fosdick thereupon sent several 
trained investigators to this southern city and 
from its seemingly pure confines gathered such 
an exact set of sordid figures, together with 

197 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

convincing details such as the brands of liquor 
being sold in the various vice dens, that the 
mayor, when the report was transmitted to him 
by the Government, threw up his hands and 
accepted enlightenment. The city woke up. It 
had a big house-cleaning, and it is now a fit place 
for the men of the army of the United States 
to go when on leave. 

Again and again the representatives of the 
commissions said to towns, "If you do not 
eliminate your 'red light' district, now that 
these facts have been made known to you, the 
Government will be forced to act. Will you be 
a 'slacker' town, or not?" Many officials, of 
course, complied with the request only because 
they knew it would be futile not to do so. Some 
opposed "the new-fangled notion." But by 
the end of September — less than six months 
after war had been declared — there was not a 
single "red light" district within five miles of 
any important military or naval training es- 
tablishment in the United States. More than 
twenty-five had been closed. Gradually a bet- 
ter moral sentiment had been created. The 

198 



A PEOBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

old opinion that the community must be pro- 
tected from the soldier and sailor was gradu- 
ally discarded. Army and navy regulations 
guaranteed that a soldier or sailor on liberty 
was free from disease. The representatives of - 
the Surgeon-General's office were responsible 
for that. Would the community meet the Gov- 
ernment halfway; would it make such a guar- 
antee as to its inhabitants ? 

It cannot be denied that the governmental 
mandate to communities, ''Here comes a sol- 
dier. Clean up!" was in the beginning looked 
upon askance, even by some officers of the army 
itself. Some military men of the "old school" 
thought it not only unwise, but a menace to the 
liberty of the soldier to have the "red light" 
districts near camps closed. But these officers 
were the great exception, and not the rule. In 
some cases the investigations of the commis- 
sions have brought to light the gross negligence 
of civil servants, and the appeal has been so 
strongly to the patriotism of political constit- 
uents that occasionally reform has been hastily 
substituted by the politicians themselves to save 

199 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

their own heads! Sometimes more drastic 
methods were necessary. Not long ago the 
Provost Guards of Uncle Sam's army — rep- 
resentatives of the National Government — 
paced the streets of one of the largest cities in 
the country, where the police force had failed 
to do its duty. Fortunately, civic shame made 
it necessary for them to stay there only a short 
time. Even more drastic action was necessary 
with a city in the vicinity of a large national 
army camp in the West. 

''Clear the street-walkers from your boule- 
vards and stamp out those dancing-hall hells 
where the boot-leggers lie thick," warned the 
commanding officer of the camp, ''or not a man 
of my thirty thousand will enter your city." 

The mayor and the police of this city thought 
that the general was bluffing; neither took posi- 
tive action. But the general was not bluffing. 
True to his word, he slapped an embargo on 
that enterprising American city and thereby 
gave the town the shock of its life. Not a sol- 
dier was permitted to enter the city. For a 
thousand miles around the papers laughed in 

200 



A PROBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

loud headlines ; editorially, they jeered. It did 
not take long for the indignant citizens to get 
together in mass-meetings and finally force the 
municipal authorities by sheer weight of pub- 
lic opinion to clean up the town. Then, and 
not until then, was the embargo lifted. And it 
is safe to say that then, and not till then, did 
the people of that city really appreciate that 
we were at war, that the Government was fight- 
ing and that it was not disposed to let stupidity 
or any other factor retard the efficiency of its 
fighting force. 

Secretary Daniels has called attention to the 
fact that in the American navy itself, during 
the year before war broke out, over 140,000 
working days were lost because of venereal dis- 
ease. Enough men were daily incapacitated 
through the ravages of vice to man a battle- 
ship. Little wonder that the Government will 
not tolerate as obstacles in its path of social 
progress the negligence or short-sightedness of 
local officials. The war, as everyone knows, 
will be won upon a basis of man power, and 
America cannot afford to lose a single soldier or 

201 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

sailor through any cause that it is humanly 
possible to prevent. 

As a matter of fact, immense progress has 
been made to date in eliminating drink and 
disease from the army. The Commissions on 
Training Camp Activities officially estimate 
that the venereal disease rate has been reduced 
fifty per cent, since the beginning of the war. 
The significance of this fact can only be grasped 
by considering that our military strength has 
been more than trebled since 1916. It is a 
truth supported by the records of General 
Pershing and the Surgeon-General of the 
American Army that the venereal disease rate 
of our army is far less than that of any of the 
other warring nations. The repression of vice 
resorts in cities in the immediate vicinity of 
camps, which was accomplished early in the 
war-year under the congressional enactment 
previously referred to, has developed into an 
attempt at repression of such places everywhere 
in sections of the country visited by our sol- 
diers and sailors in large numbers. The work 
of the commissions, in effect, has become one of 

202 



A PROBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

cleaning up the whole United States. Until 
May of this year over seventy "red light" dis- 
tricts had been wiped out. Forty-five of these 
were not in the immediate vicinity of military 
camps, and did not, therefore come within the 
prohibited zones provided for by the federal 
law. Their abolition was the result of the co- 
operation of state and municipal authorities 
with the commissions. 

By increasingly stringent regulation of the 
sale or gift of liquor, the Government has suc- 
ceeded in rapidly diminishing the number of 
boot-leggers, who have thought that they were 
doing a service to soldiers by procuring liquor 
for them. Heavy fines, and often imprison- 
ment, act as a deterrent to the man who violates 
the federal law. In several cities ordinances 
have been passed that forbid the sale of al- 
coholic liquors in packages. In other cities a 
similar result has been reached through the 
voluntary agreement of liquor-dealer associa- 
tions. The State of Texas, by special legisla- 
tive enactment, has forbidden the sale of liquor 
within a ten mile zone surrounding each mili- 

203 



KEEPING OUR FIGHTERS FIT 

tary establishment in the state, with the result 
that boot-legging has greatly decreased. Cafes 
have even refrained from serving liquor at 
tables where soldiers or sailors are seated, in 
order to prevent switching of drinks. It is, 
of course, impossible for the Government to 
guarantee that no soldier will ever be able to 
lay hands on a drink, but it is proceeding upon 
the principle that it will be extremely difficult 
for him to obtain one. In other words, the man 
in the service, if he wants a drink, will have 
to hunt for it. 

In any consideration of the problem of re- 
pression of liquor and vice in the army and 
navy, many people will gain the mistaken idea 
that the boys in our service are a lot of wild 
animals. For a short period last autumn, fol- 
lowing the going to camp of hundreds of 
thousands of newly drafted men, the country 
was flooded with a wave of absurd stories 
of immorality surrounding the camps. These 
baseless reports have never coincided with the 
facts as gathered by the men who have lived 
in the army and navy communities during the 

204 



A PROBLEM AS OLD AS TIME ITSELF 

past year. Dr. Joseph H. Odell, in his admir- 
able book "The New Spirit of the New Army," 
reports that in the division of twenty-seven 
thousand men at Camp Hancock, near Augusta, 
Georgia, there had been "but four drunk and 
disorderly cases in six weeks." The various 
commanding officers of the camps here and 
across the sea have testified again and again as 
to the high level of morality obtaining in our 
miUtary forces. Indeed, it is not too much to 
say that the American Army and Navy, as they 
prepare to cast the full force of their weight 
into the struggle in Europe, stand as fit and 
clean for the fight as any military force ever 
did, and far more fit and clean than most 
modern armies. 



205 



CHAPTER XII 

CONCLUSION 

RIGHT shall triumph, and it will be a right 
army that is triumphant. It will be a 
well-trained, well-disciplined army and navy 
composed of men who are physically and men- 
tally fit, men who are brave, alert, and aware 
of the justice of their cause. 

They are fighting in France to-day. They 
are wearing steel helmets that protect them 
against bits of flying shells, and they are also 
wearing the "invisible armor," the forging of 
which Secretary Baker began when he sent Mr. 
Fosdick to the Mexican border in the summer 
of 1916. ''I want them to have an armor," he 
said, ''made up of a set of social habits re- 
placing those of their homes and communities — 
a set of social habits and a state of social mind 
born in the training camps, a new soldier state 

206 



CONCLUSION 

of mind; so that when they get overseas and are 
removed from the reach of our comforting and 
restraining and helpful hand, they will have 
gotten such a state of habits as will constitute 
a moral and intellectual armor for their protec- 
tion." 

After the smoke of the battle has cleared, 
when there shall be peace with honor and jus- 
tice, there will come the great process of read- 
justment. The men will be mustered out and 
returned to their former tasks. Those who are 
spared — and may they be many ! — will be better 
citizens than they were before they went in. 
They will have been graduated from "the 
larger university." They will have learned 
the meaning of concerted effort, obedience, 
loyalty, cheerfulness, courage and generosity. 
They will come back with a new set of ideals, as 
men who have been tried by fire and found good 
metal. 

FINIS 



207 



THE REBUILDING 
OF EUROPE 

By David Jayne Hill 

Former Ambassador to Germany 

In which this eminent jurist traces the development among European 
races of divergent philosophical ideals of government and their relation 
to the present world conflagration. At once a scholarly presentation of 
past faiths and a brilliant forecast of a possible internationalism which 
may rise from their ashes. 

Mr. Hill points out the gradual transference of sovereignty from 
state to people, and its effect upon the people's relation to the war. Not 
since the Crusaders battled for the Christian faith has there been waged 
a war so fundamentally abstract in its goal. Two conflicting philosophic 
principles — imperialism and democracy — are engaged in a life and death 
struggle. With brilliant reasoning and a wealth of philosophic authority 
Mr. Hill analyzes the strength and weakness of either cause. 

David Jayne Hill, former university professor and one of the most 
experienced American diplomatists,. writes out of the fulness of intimate 
study of the poHtical ideals of Europe. He has served as minister to 
republican Switzerland, and democratic Netherlands, and as ambassador 
to the German Empire. 

12mo, 250 pages 
Price $1.50 

At All Bookstores TOP rTNTITPV Cf\ 353 Fourth Avenue 
Published by i nC VEil^ 1 UIV 1 \AJ* New York City 



AMERICA'S FORHGN 
REUTIONS 

By Willis Fletcher Johnson 

Author of "A Century of Hxpansion," etc. 

A non-technical, though studiously accurate, narrative designed to 
give the average lay citizen a clear understanding of topics which are 
among the most important and the most neglected in all our national 
annals. 

A history of the foreign relations of the United States, the origin 
and development of our international relationships, and the principles 
of our international policy. The author traces the developments pro- 
duced by our early wars, our share in the opening of the Orient, the 
position of Europe towards our Civil War, our colonial expansion, our 
difficulties with British America, the war with Spain, our various dealings 
with Latin America, and every other aspect of our international relation- 
ships to the present day. 

The New York Times says : "His book is candid, impartial, detailed, 
and vividly interesting. It is the result of a lifetime of scholarly research, 
and in its presentation has the purpose of popularity, in the admirable 
sense of that much-abused word; it has the material and the intention 
to be of real value, and it succeeds in its aim. The author tells us not 
only what our foreign relations have been but what manner of men 
have been intrusted with the shaping of those relations. We may per- 
haps note that the book is especially interesting in its tracing of the 
development of our relations with Great Britain." 

Royal octavo, two vols.; 1000 pages, 

with appendixes, index, and 

16 illustrations 

Price $6. 00 net, boxed 

At AH Bookstores TUC frNTITPY C(\ 353 Fourth Avenue 
Published by * **Ei \^lA\ I UIV 1 VAJ* New York City 



AMERICA AFTER 
THE WAR 

By An American Jurist 



Must America have a dictator? Must she annex Canada, Mexico, 
Central America, the West Indies? Must she maintain a huge standing 
army and a powerful navy? Tremendous war-born changes are in 
progress, and more are to come. Alert Americans will begin preparing 
themselves now for adjustment or conflict. 

This book is made up of those special articles contributed to The 
New York Times which drew excited comment from an amazed Europe. 
Far-sighted American readers who now have the opportunity of reading 
them all together and so catching the full force of the author's audacity, 
logic and vision in one unified impression will be even more astounded. 

The author, who for reasons that cannot now be revealed, is remain- 
ing anonymous, draws a tentative sketch of what America will look like 
after, and as a result of, the war. He sees a great centralization of power 
at Washington, with the vast subsidiary changes which that means all 
over the country. He sees radical readjustments with Mexico, Canada, 
and the West Indies, and the powerful Pacific countries ; a huge stand- 
ing army and a great navy ; possible financial stress and industrial unrest ; 
a straining of democracy that may not hold. No patriotic American can 
afford to miss this book. 

16mo, 208 pages 
Price $1.00 

At All Bookstore* TUC PI7NTfTPV CC\ 353 Fourth Avenue 
Published by * nJCi V^Eiil I UIV i VtF. New York City 



THE NEW MAP 
OF EUROPE 

By Herbert Adams Gibbons 

Author of "The New Map of Africa," etc. 



Not prophecy. Not propaganda. Not ancient history. But an im- 
partial, dramatic account of the history of the ten tremendous years 
leading up to the titanic War of the Ten Nations. Shows the exact 
bearing of each crisis and incident from the Kaiser's famous visit to 
Morocco in 1905 up to the outbreak of hostilities in August, 1914. 

As a trained newspaper correspondent stationed for years in the very 
storm-center of Europe, Mr. Gibbons had unusual opportunities to see 
the war in the making. As a student and professor of history, he had 
the scientific background and equipment for a fair and clear interpreta- 
tion of what he saw. Beginning to write as the war began, his narra- 
tive style inevitably took on the rushing swiftness and the thrilling large- 
ness of the colossal events then sweeping down upon the world. 

Octavo, 412 pages, 6 double maps 
Price $2.00 



At All Boolctores TUr rrNTITPY CC\ 353 Fourth Avenue 
Publithed by * nC V/Eiil I UIV 1 \AJ* New York City 



THE NEW MAP 
OF AFRICA 



By Herbert Adams Gibbons 

Author of "The New Map of Europe," etc 

This new book does for Africa what the author's immensely success- 
ful "The New Map of Europe" did for that continent — that is, it gives 
the history, especially on the diplomatic side, of the crucial years from 
1899 to the great war as they affected Africa. Necessarily the author 
also glances at African affairs before 1899, as far back as 1850, and 
considers the future of that rich and coveted continent. "The New Map 
of Africa" covers a field as yet untouched, in compact form, in any 
language. 

Africa offers to the overcrowded, ambitious, and powerful European 
nations their nearest and otherwise most available field of expansion and 
commercial exploitation ; but the nations have by no means been agreed 
as to who should take what. The military and diplomatic movements of 
the contesting countries, as recorded and interpreted by Mr. Gibbons, 
make a book as interesting as it is historically important. 

Octavo, 550 pages, 6 maps 
Price $2.00 



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RUSSIA IN 
UPHEAVAL 

By Edward Alsworth Ross 

Author of "South of Panama," etc 



Many writers have pictured Russia in the throes of revolution, but 
there is probably no hving American so well prepared as Professor Ross 
to present, not only the revolution itself, but its origins in the past and its 
probable results in the future. The brilliant Wisconsin sociologist, whose 
previous books have so inimitably touched into life the problems of 
South America, the Changing Chinese, and our own population, was 
traveling through Russia, with every facility for the most intimate 
observation, during the greater part of Russia's red year. He visited not 
only Petrograd and Moscow, but also the Volga, the Caucasus, Turkestan, 
and Siberia. "Russia in Upheaval" is the ripe harvest of these varied 
experiences. It discusses the Overthrow of Autocracy, the New Free- 
dom in Russia, Soil Hunger and Land Redistribution, Labor and Capital 
in Russia, the Casting Out of Vodka, Russian Women and Their Outlook, 
th& Church and the Sects, the Cooperative Movement in Russia, the 
Zemstvos and How They Built a State Within a State, and the Future 
Emigration from Russia. 

Octavo, 300 pages, 80 illustrations 
Price $2.50 

At All Bookstores TLI|7 rTNTITPV Ci\ 353 Fourth Avenue 
Published by lilEi V/EillIUIVl \AJ* New York City 



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